Have a Goode Year
by Gazimu
Summary: Percy returns to Goode High for Junior Year, and is followed by a few of his Demigod Friends! See how they adjust to being in school together with all the Mortals and how they've coped with the Titan and Giant wars! Post HoO! Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus! Rick Riordan does!
1. Waking up

**A/N: This is my first Fanfic story, and I dunno how it'll go, but I have a rough idea for how this plot will be, so bear with me and if you have any tips or critique, I'm all ears! I also accept song suggestions to listen to while I write, it keeps me distracted from other noise so I don't get distracted.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus.**

**Eric**

_I glanced around, the darkness surrounding me. I had no idea where I was, and I couldn't see anything either. Suddenly, the area lit up some, and as I glanced down, I almost jumped out of my skin. I was standing on glass, hovering high above the ground and moving. Where was I?_

_I heard voices too, as I looked up, I saw two people in the room, sitting on the glass and talking. It was a boy and a girl, they looked sort of around his age. "Huh" I mumbled to myself. Quietly, I moved closer, to hear what they were saying, neither one had turned in my direction. _

_The girl had curly blonde hair, in a messy ponytail, her skin tanned and scarred. The boy seemed a bit bigger than her, his skin wasn't quite as tanned, hers seemed like it was natural. He had messy black hair, as best as I could tell from the back. I got close enough to hear parts of their conversation and stopped. _

"_I don't know," the girl said, she sounded distressed, "On top of that, I've been having nightmares of my own. They don't make as much sense as yours." _

_The two sat there in silence for a minute or two, both of them seemed like they were thinking. I saw the side of the girl's face as she let herself smile faintly. She muttered something about romantic evenings and kissed him, saying something else in a reassuring tone right after._

"_Right," the boy said, turning. "No more talk about Gaea rising, Nico being held hostage, the world ending, the giants—"_

_I caught a glance of the boy's face as the girl muttered something. As they moved closer together, the guy's head swivelled and he was looking right at me, but then turned away again, as if he'd seen nothing. The guy had really distinct eyes, bright green. I shook my head, wondering why the boy hadn't said anything or seen me, and as I shook my head a beeping sound went off in my ears._

I shook into consciousness and almost fell off the side of my bed. My alarm was going off, and I heard my father shouting for me to get up. I sighed and hit the snooze button, that was another dream I'd had that made no sense, but it was the first with any people in it, the rest had just been darkness and, well, monsters of some sort.

I couldn't really figure it out, and didn't want to talk to anyone about it. Shrugging it off, I pulled myself out of bed and got dressed.

As I looked at myself in the mirror, I smirked, at least all the weird dreams didn't give me sleep deprivation, otherwise I'd have black circles under my eyes. That would really mess with the whole good impressions thing, since I sort of had plans to make some friends this year, I'd had a friend a few years ago here, but he left part way through the year, just disappeared.

I honestly wasn't half bad looking, short brown hair and light blue eyes. I had grown a few extra inches over the summer to reach around five foot ten, and I had an average build, not really athletic, but it was good enough for me.

I was in somewhat of a bad mood as I trudged down the steps to the kitchen, and my dad seemed to notice, "What's wrong with you this morning?" he asked, half expecting the answer to just be that I was tired.

"Not much, just tired" I replied swiftly, and my dad chuckled.

"Nervous about school?" he asked, looking over at me.

I turned to him, and paused before replying, I was a bit nervous, actually, since it was the first day of my senior year, but that wasn't what had me on edge. I wasn't going to just tell his dad about those dreams though, he'd think his son was going crazy.

"Yea, a little bit I guess" I told him quickly, before getting up and grabbing my school bag.

I headed to the door and heard my dad calling to me from the kitchen, "Try not to get into trouble!" I smiled, knowing full well trouble would find me somehow.

When I got to school, I went to the office and got my schedule and locker number. I looked around the hallways calmly, seeing all the banners on the walls, _'We hope you have a 'Goode' year!' _Sometimes I wanted to jump off the roof of Goode High so I could have a 'Goode' fall, this place had that effect on me with how the teachers could be, there were very few good ones in the school, but as I started to head for my locker, I ended up alongside one of my favourites.

"Oh hey Mr. Blofis" I said, smiling. Mr. Blofis taught English, and he was probably the best teacher I'd ever had. He joked with his students and almost never got mad. I'd never even seen him give anyone a detention, though it helped that students in his class rarely gave him any reason to do so, he just had some way of persuading them to behave.

To be entirely honest, I saw him almost like a second father figure, any time I had problems with schoolwork, I just went to him with it.

"Hello there Eric, excited for senior year?" Mr. Blofis asked, smiling at me. "Of course sir!" I replied, smiling back, it was like he was just another friend, except he was my teacher.

"I assume you've gotten your schedule?" Mr. Blofis asked me, glancing down at the papers in my hands.

"Yea, haven't looked at it yet though" I said, realizing I wanted to check who my teachers were, I began shuffling through the papers with my hands. My teacher smiled, "Don't worry Eric, I made sure to get you in my English class" he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for having this man around. "Thanks sir" I said, a little bit of worry lifted from my shoulders, Mr. Blofis began to walk down the hall away from me, "I have to go get ready for my classes, but I believe you're not alone in my class, Mr. Williams" he said, winking at me knowingly and turning away, heading for his classroom. I don't know what I would do in this place without him teaching here. I also wondered what he meant by me not being alone.

As I reached my locker, I noticed a guy opening the one right next to mine, and he looked familiar. I walked closer and chose to ignore the uneasy feeling in my stomach, opening my locker quickly, not even a foot away from the boy, who hadn't taken the time to look at me.

I put some of my stuff in the locker, hearing my new neighbor shutting his. The guy beside me turned in my direction, and I stopped and turned towards him quizzically, why was the dude looking at me?

"Are you alright?" I asked, turning to the guy and looking at him, freezing.

The boy looked back at me with bright green eyes, "Eric?" he asked, seeming to be remembering a distant memory.

I realized who was in front of me, and also realized immediately that he'd been in my dream just last night. The worst part was, I knew him.

"Percy?"

**A/N: Hope it's alright, this first chapter is annoyingly short, but the next one will introduce most of the Demigod characters and get Percy into the story a bit.**


	2. Introductions

**A/N: So, this one is longer, 3,080 words. Hope it's a bit more to chew on and get into the story with after just introducing Eric as one of the OC's in this story. First chapter got 4 reviews, 8 favourites, 16 followers and 225 views! Thanks guys!**

**Eric**

I stared at him in shock. I hadn't seen Percy since he disappeared halfway through sophomore year. Without any warning either, he had just stopped showing up to school one day, and no matter how much I'd pestered his friend Rachel about it, she wouldn't budge.

"Dude, where have you been?" I asked, incredulously. He shrugged it off, smiling at me as if his disappearance was nothing.

"Just had a lot of stuff happen that I had to um, deal with" he said, his smile wavering for a moment.

"You sure about that?" I asked, looking at him, sure, I hadn't gotten to know him all too well before he had gone off the radar, but I considered the guy my friend, and he didn't exactly seem at ease, even less so than he had before. He looked at me, "Yea, I'm sure…" he said slowly, I gave him a look to let him know I wasn't buying it and he sighed.

"A lot of friends from my summer camp died in an accident a while ago, when I stopped going to school," he said slowly, as if thinking every word before he let it out, "and just when things seemed to be getting better, I got in an accident of my own and had amnesia" he finished.

I stared at him, "Whoa" was all I could get out. He managed to chuckle at my lackluster reply, "Yea" he said, turning his head from me to look at his schedule.

"What do you have first?" he asked, glancing up at me from his schedule with a small grin on his face.

"Why, I have dear old Paul." I said, mocking him on how he'd always slip up and call Mr. Blofis Paul when we were at school. Percy shoved me and smirked, "Good," he said, "I don't want to be stuck alone in there." He started heading towards our class and I followed, still curious about what had happened while he was gone.

"So um, "I started as I caught up with him, he looked over at me expectantly while we walked, like he knew exactly what I was going to ask. "Was there anything good about your years of being AWOL?" he got a look in his eyes that answered for him before he got a chance to speak, "One or two things" he said mysteriously.

"Oh come on, you have to tell me!" I exclaimed.

He laughed, "Says who?" he asked me, knowing full well I just wanted to know.

As we walked into English I saw Mr. Blofis and waved, he looked up and smiled at Percy and I, "Ah, Percy, I see you found your old partner in crime," Percy just smiled at him, "Mr. Blofis, just remember we have a few new students who are going to be showing up soon, I think Eric and I are the least of your problems" the two seemed to share a knowing look and Mr. Blofis paled a little bit. "Just try to keep them in line, Mr. Jackson." Percy smirked and took a seat.

I sat down in the desk next to him and leaned on the desk, holding my head up with my hand. "New students?" I asked, confused, how did Percy know if we had new students?

He smiled, and got that look in his eyes again, like he was having a happy memory. "Yea, a bunch of my friends from that camp I told you about transferred here for the year, I don't know how, but they all decided that they were going to attend Goode without any coordination" he said, glancing out one of the windows.

"Dude, you seem pretty thrilled about it" I said, starting to feel a nervous excitement. It would be interesting to meet all these people, especially since they knew Percy and he seemed to be dying of anticipation over them going to school with him, but then, I had just gotten him back, and Percy had been one of my only real friends before he left, I didn't want to get excluded and lose this chance to get him back as a friend, and maybe make some new ones.

I pulled out of my thoughts, "So, when are your friends supposed to get here?" I asked him, he'd said they were going to show up soon, but what was soon?

Percy shrugged, "Hell if I know, I don't think they'll all show up at once, some might even be here-" a loud bang went off outside the door and I watched as what looked like a firework shot past the door, two guys who were almost identical skidded into the doorway, sly grins on their faces.

"-Now" Percy said, looking at the two guys and grinning. They saw him and their eyes widened, "PERCY!" they both said in unison, waving at him at the same time and strolling into the classroom. One of them was taller than the other, and that was probably the only difference you could see between the two, and I couldn't help but notice Mr. Blofis shaking his head with a worried look in his eyes.

These two must have been what Percy was warning him about.

They sat down in two desks beside each other and near Percy, who was grinning. "Where did you idiots get a firecracker and bring it here?" he asked, not sounding very surprised that they'd done it.

"Oh come on Percy, where would we NOT find a firecracker for the first day of school?" the taller one asked, his mischievous grin almost like a permanent feature on his face.

I was about to speak up, feeling a bit left out, and worried, but Percy beat me as he turned to me, "Hey Eric, this is Travis and Connor Stoll" he said, pointing out the taller one as Travis, "Guys, this is Eric Williams, he was one of my friends here before I had to stop going to school from the accident at camp" he said, they nodded, turning to me and putting out their hands to shake mine.

"Nice to-"Travis began,

"-Meet you!" Connor finished.

I shook their hands and smiled, already knowing these guys were going to make the year very interesting, I decided to follow up on Percy's question, "So, do you guys just have fireworks waiting for events like these or something?" I asked them, smirking.

Connor shrugged, "Hey, gotta be prepared to celebrate, right?" he asked, no one needed to answer, it was obviously more of a statement than anything.

More people filtered into the classroom, until almost all the seats were full. As the bell rang, a boy and a girl burst through the doorway, looking out of breath.

"Sorry!" the girl said to Mr. Blofis apologetically, and the boy smirked, "Hey, we weren't late, technically." The girl elbowed him, "Shut up Jason" she said, glaring at him.

Mr. Blofis smiled, "Don't worry about it, why were you 'almost late'?" he asked, doing finger quotes around the words almost late for the boy, Jason, who looked embarrassed, the girl managed a shy smile, "We lost track of time at our lockers" she said, I could hear the Stoll brothers snickering nearby and Travis turned back to Percy and I, "Wonder what got them so caught up by their lockers" he whispered, and Percy and I joined in the snickering.

The girl seemed to hear us and turned in the seat she'd taken, glaring at the four of us. The Stolls kept going, but Percy managed to stop himself as he glanced back at her, but gave her a comedic grin, and her features softened and she turned away from them. Whoa, did Percy just charm a girl into ignoring their laughing at her?

"How'd you do that?" I asked in disbelief, pointing discreetly at the girl. Percy shrugged and said simply, "She's from camp, so is the guy" he told me, smirking as he glanced back at them.

"I'm assuming they're dating?" I asked, getting past the boring questions, Percy nodded, "Yea, Jason and Piper" he said. I glanced at the two of them for a moment, processing that, before a thought occurred to me, "Hey, do you have a girlfriend?" I asked Percy.

It must have seemed out of nowhere, because he gave me a sideways look, "Uhh" he replied smoothly, "Is that a no?" I asked, chuckling softly so as to not be heard by anyone but Percy, he shook his head, "No no, I have a girlfriend, you just caught me off guard" he said, a little bit defensively.

I blinked in surprise, girlfriend? Percy? The words wouldn't seem to compute together in my head. I mean, sure, he'd gotten taller and less skinny since the last time I'd seen him, but he wasn't exactly a chick magnet back then, could that have changed?

"Oh yea? Prove it!" I whispered to him after my moment of silence, smirking. He rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone, pressing on his gallery app and scrolling through them until he found one and pressed it, then he held the screen so I could see it.

I stared in shock, it was Percy, looking a little bit beat up, with an equally beat up looking girl. He had his arms around her shoulder, but come on, this girl was really good looking! There was no way she was dating Percy! "I don't believe that" I said, maybe a little too loud. Some people in the class looked back at me in irritation, Mr. Blofis glanced at me, before continuing his lecture on what to expect for the class this year.

Percy scoffed, "Fine, don't believe me" he said, turning and facing forwards. I stared at him for a bit in confusion, Percy was stubborn, there was no way he was giving up so easily, unless he knew something I didn't, which seemed to be happening with a few things so far.

I decided to drop the girlfriend thing for now and tapped his shoulder, "So, how many of your friends are going to be here, anyways?" I asked him, glancing at the Stolls and then at Piper and Jason, who seemed to be chatting with each other quietly, ignoring the teacher like us. Travis and Connor turned in their seats with silly grins on their faces, deciding the answer for Percy.

"Well, there's us, then Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Katie, obviously Percy, annnnnd Annabeth" the two said, taking turns stating names. I noticed that Travis's cheeks went pink at the mention of Katie.

I also noticed that Percy seemed very happy at the last name, Annabeth. Was that his girlfriend?

Glancing at Percy and then back at the Stoll brothers, I counted up, "So counting Percy, there's ten of you coming here" I said finally, the brothers nodded, grinning, "It's going to be a very entertaining year, I can assure you of that, young grasshopper" Connor said, grinning at me.

The bell finally rang, and we got up and left the class quickly, saying bye to Paul. Percy patted him on the shoulder, "Sorry about the Stoll's, I should have warned you" he said, grinning and leaving the class. We walked out and found the couple from earlier, Jason and Piper, waiting for us. Piper grinned when she saw Percy, as they'd already said hello to the Stoll's, and gave him a hug. Percy smiled back as she let him go. "Hey guys" he said, smirking, "Oh and uh, this is Eric, he's a friend of mine"

Jason nodded in greeting, smiling, and Piper said hello in a really sweet voice, I smiled back at her, "Sorry for laughing at you guys at the start of class" I said apologetically, they shrugged it off, "No worries, we were expecting worse from the Stolls" Piper said, glaring at them as they tried to act innocent.

Percy was starting to ask when the rest of their friends were going to show up when a shout interrupted him.

"GUESS WHO'S BACK!"

-LINEBREAK-

I headed into my next class, Math, with my newest acquaintance, Leo. He'd shown up between first and second period and had been crazy the entire time.

Leo was basically a latino elf on an eternal sugar rush. There was no better description for the kid. When he found out we had the same class he nearly went ballistic, exclaiming how we'd be best buddies by the end of the period. He proceeded to drag me there, and as I looked back I saw Percy and the rest looking at me with pity, and amused grins.

As we walked into the class together, Leo opened his arms as if he were the messiah come to save them from algebra.

"HELLO MY FRIENDS, LEO IS HERE!" he shouted, earning stares from the entire class. They glared at him in confusion for a moment before a girl with long black hair and brown eyes stood up, giving him a stern look, "Shut up Leo" she said, putting her hands on her hips.

Leo took the girl's response in stride and walked over to sit beside her, "Oh calm down Katie, I'm just joking around. Maybe if you learned to take a joke Travis would actually ask you out" he said, smirking at her and sitting down at the desk beside hers.

I sat in the seat behind Leo as Katie reacted to his words, picking up her math textbook and smacking him in the shoulder, "Shut up" she retorted, her face red. Leo feigned hurt, rubbing his shoulder, and then smiled. "By the way, this is Eric, Percy's friend" the girl's face softened a bit and she smiled at me, "Hi, I'm Katie," she said, and then leaned over to me putting a hand in front of her mouth, "Sorry about Leo, he's a little bit crazy" she said, her kind smile reminded me of the other girl, Piper.

I shrugged, "I think all of the guy's Percy has introduced to me so far are a little bit crazy" he said, thinking of the Stoll's. Jason hadn't been that bad, at least. "He certainly has a wide variety of friends" I added, glancing at Leo, who was unfazed by being called crazy. He chuckled, "Yea, Eric got to meet your boyfriend and his partner in crime" he said to Katie, who smacked him with her book again, "He's not my boyfriend!" she said, glaring at him.

"Okay then" I said awkwardly, out of the whole friendship loop these people had going on. Katie must have noticed, because she smiled at me apologetically, "Sorry, we're all pretty close friends, it's a lot to try and take on all at once" she told me, as Leo patted my shoulder, "Yea, we're all the best though, and soon you'll be one of the best with us" he said, a silly grin on his face.

The teacher walked in and took attendance, and then began the lesson, god, I hated math so much.

My attention quickly shifted to Leo in front of me, he was far from paying any attention either, and instead was just tinkering with some metal scraps, I decided not to ask what he was doing, or where he got the metal, I had a feeling that with Leo, things were better left unanswered.

Katie tapped on my shoulder, and I glanced over, "So, I figure since you know Percy he wouldn't mind, but uh, all of us are meeting up and hanging out at our apartment later, you can come if you want" she said, smiling at me. I just sat there, unsure what to say.

I'd never been invited places before, except going over to Percy's house a few times, I shook out of my stupor and accepted.

Katie smiled, "Well, I don't think you know where our apartment is, but you could go home with Percy and get a ride with him" she said, as if she already knew Percy wouldn't mind. I nodded, "Sounds good, I'll ask him." I replied, smiling back. Half a day back to school and I had met six people, and Percy was back. Maybe this year wasn't going to be so bad.

I saw Leo looking back at us and smirking, like he knew something I didn't, "What?" I asked him.

Leo just chuckled and turned back to the front, "Nothing, nothing" he said.

I wasn't about to accept that, obviously Leo knew something, so I flicked him in the back of the head, suddenly realizing why Katie must do it so often. He had that way of getting everyone to want to smack him silly.

He turned around and stared at me, "Ow!" he exclaimed, "What?"

"What was the smile about?" I asked with a hint of annoyance in my voice, he shrugged.

"There's a surprise waiting at Percy's apartment is all" he said with a grin, Katie frowned, "Please tell me you and the Stolls did not set up a prank in his apartment" she said angrily.

Leo put his arms up, "No no, nothing like that, this surprise set itself up" he said. I looked over at Katie for answers and she shrugged, as in the dark as I was.

-LINE BREAK-

The rest of the day went pretty smoothly, I had third period with Leo, Jason and Percy, and then fourth period with Katie, the Stolls and Piper. Honestly, watching the Stolls in the same room as Katie had been the most entertaining part of the day, by far.

I walked out into the parking lot and saw Percy with two other kids, they looked younger than him, even though the guy was huge. I caught Percy's attention and waved, jogging over to them and smiling.

Percy grinned at me, "Hey, this is Frank and Hazel!" he said, gesturing to the two with him, they smiled and said hello. "They're in the year below us, so I haven't seen them all day" he explained, I nodded, "So, ready to go?" I asked. He smirked, "Yea, we're getting a ride home with Paul, if that's okay with you" Percy said, as Frank and Hazel said they'd see us later and left to go home.

As I got into the back of Paul's car, I thought about the surprise Leo had mentioned earlier today and wondered what was waiting for Percy at his apartment.

**A/N: So we have almost all of the Demigods introduced into the story, in various capacity. What do you think the surprise will be? It shouldn't be a hard guess :P**


	3. Surprises

**A/N: Definitely not a great chapter coming up, but I'm trying to establish all the characters so that the story can progress. Sorry if it feels rushed! Also, thanks to everyone for their reviews, favourites and follows! Hopefully my writing for the characters and story improves over time so that you guys can enjoy the read more :P**

**Percy**

I sat in the passenger seat of Paul's car as we drove home, and Paul asked us about our first day.

Eric smiled from the back, "Was pretty cool, I wasn't expecting Percy to be back, or to bring a bunch of crazy friends of his with him" he said, chuckling. I smirked, "Yea, they're uh, they're a special bunch of people." Special was one word for them…

I decided to stay off the whole Demigod topic in my head and just focus on other things about them, "So, which ones do you think you like most?" I asked, turning in my seat to face Eric as we sat at a red light. He took on a thoughtful expression, "I'd have to say the Stolls, solely based on entertainment value" he said, laughing. I nodded and grinned, "If you think the firework thing was bad, just wait"

I saw Paul's eyes open in alarm and turn to me, "What do you mean?" he asked shakily, I just grinned at him and turned back to Eric, "All in due time, Paul" I told him mysteriously. He shuddered and turned his attention back to the road, probably fearing for his life with them in his school.

"Other than that, Katie was really nice" Eric added, looking out the window. Of course, Katie had been nice to him, she was like that, and so was Piper. "Yea, she's pretty nice, except when she's talking to the Stolls" I added thoughtfully, remembering that Piper had said she had a class with Eric, Katie and the Stolls today. Eric chuckled, "I didn't know anyone could end up that red, but I guess anger and embarrassment together do the trick" Obviously the Stolls had made the class all about Katie in one way or another, teasing her and annoying her.

The fact that they were living in the same apartment now with the others was going to be an interesting story to follow.

Paul pulled into the parking lot for our apartment building and parked, "Here we are" he said, turning off the car. I hopped out and shouldered my bag, smiling as we walked up to the entrance to my apartment building. It wasn't really a lot, but it was home.

We went up the stairs and Eric and I lagged behind Paul a bit, Eric talked to me as we went up, "So, Paul and your mom…" he trailed off the obvious question, I nodded, "Prepare to meet Mrs. Blowfish" I said, and we both chuckled behind Paul as he opened the door to the apartment and went in.

I walked in and saw my mom, she turned and hugged Paul and I, and "Hey boys!" she said, smiling kindly.

Eric stepped in behind me and she saw him, smiling wider, with a bit of a surprised look on her face, "Eric!" she exclaimed, giving him a hug as well, "I haven't seen you in a while!"

Eric smiled and laughed, "Well, your son decided to stop inviting me over, it seems" he joked, smirking at me.

My mom smiled apologetically, "Yes well, Percy's been caught up with some things, sadly."

"Yea" I agreed, my voice came out somewhat sad, and I quickly moved to cover it up, "Why don't you head to the living room Eric? I'm just gonna put my stuff in my room" I told him.

Eric nodded and headed to the living room, I saw him pick up the remote and start going through the channels, making himself instantly at home.

I smirked at how easily he settled back into being here and went to my room. I opened the door and tossed my bag on my bed.

I paused, looking at my bed, something felt off.

Glancing around my room warily, I realized the problem, my bed was made and my room seemed cleaner than before. I never cleaned my room.

"Don't like it clean?" a voice said, right behind me.

I jumped and turned, but there was nothing there for a moment, then the air shimmered and a figure appeared, pulling a Yankees hat off of her blonde head.

"Annabeth!" I exclaimed, wrapping my arms around her and lifting her up into a hug. She put her arms around my neck, laughing.

"Put me down, Percy!" she managed to get out.

I set her down and kept my hands on her waist, "What are you doing here?" I asked, overridden with happy surprise.

She just smirked, "Well, I didn't feel like staying in an apartment with those psychopaths we call friends, so I decided to come here, and well, when I saw your room, I knew I'd need to take the day off school to tidy up" she explained, gesturing at the room.

"I think you just wanted to try and scare the hell out of me" I replied, leaning in and giving her a kiss. It felt every bit as amazing as the first time we'd kissed, and I knew that'd never change, she'd always make me feel this good.

I heard a cough and pulled away in surprise, looking up. I saw Eric leaning in the doorway, his mouth open. I held back a chuckle at his face and mouthed 'I told you so' and he seemed to compose himself.

"Uh, just wondered what was taking so long" he said quietly.

Annabeth managed to turn to see him, "No one told me you were bringing a friend home" she said, looking at Eric.

I stepped forwards to make introductions, keeping one hand around Annabeth's waist. "Uhh, it wasn't planned. Annabeth, this is Eric, one of my old friends from Goode" he said, Eric nodded "Hey" he said, giving a small smile.

"Eric, this is Annabeth, my completely real girlfriend" I said proudly, Annabeth smirked, "Didn't believe I existed?" she asked him, always direct.

Eric looked at her nervously, "Uhh, it's just, Percy doesn't seem like the guy who gets the really attractive girl" he said quickly, his face red.

Annabeth just laughed, unfazed by Eric's nervousness, "Don't worry Eric, I'm not here to gut you. Percy isn't the type of guy who gets the attractive girl" she said, and I raised an eyebrow at her, she winked at me and continued, "He just got lucky, I'm way out of his league" she said, patting Eric's shoulder and sauntering by him to the living room.

"Hey!" I shouted, insulted.

Eric seemed to regain his composure again and started laughing, "Oh man, I was not expecting that" he said, barely able to get the words out. I shoved past him with my shoulder, "Shut up."

He trailed behind me as I walked into the living room and dropped onto the couch beside Annabeth, there was less than an hour before we were all going to the other apartment with all our friends, I whispered in her ear, "So, you're staying here?" I asked, a faint smile on my face. She simply nodded, a happy smile on her face, as Eric made his way into the room.

Annabeth flipped through the channels absently, not interested in anything on TV. Eric sat down beside me on the couch and decided he was in a conversationalist mood.

"So, how long have you known Percy?" he asked, leaning forwards to face Annabeth, who was on the other side of the couch, with me in between.

She turned to him, giving up on the TV. "Since we were twelve," she said, and before turning away added "and we've been dating for over a year now, since I know you're going to ask."

I saw Eric close his jaw and snickered, he punched me "What?" I asked, "She's good at guessing" I added, smirking. Annabeth just sat back in her seat, leaning against my shoulder with a smug look on her face.

After a few minutes of silence my mom came into the living room, "You guys should head out, you said you would be there by seven" she said, making me glance at the clock. Six Forty Three. "Right" I said, getting up. Eric pushed himself up as I did and I put out a hand to Annabeth to help her up. She didn't really need help, but she smiled and took my hand anyways. _Score one for the Gentleman_, I thought, smiling at her, after they got back here, it would be nice to have some alone time to catch up on things.

_Like kissing her…_ my mind thought lazily, I shook my head and went towards the door with Annabeth and Eric, my mom called my name as we opened the door to leave.

"Yea?" I asked, turning. My mom tossed a set of keys in my direction and I caught them, looking down. "You'll get there quicker" she said, winking at me and heading back into the kitchen. I grinned and exited the apartment, closing the door.

"What was that?" Annabeth asked me, both her and Eric raising their eyebrows at me. I held up the keys, "We're taking Paul's car" I said, and Eric smirked and fist pumped excitedly, "SCORE!" he shouted.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and started walking down the stairs, she turned and looked over her shoulder with an evil glint in her eyes, "Shotgun" she called teasingly, wiping Eric's smile off his face. "Damnit" he muttered quietly, and I couldn't help but chuckle as we headed down the steps behind her.

"Dude, your girlfriend is mean" he said. I quietly nodded in agreement when Annabeth wasn't looking back at us, it was best she not hear any comments I had to say about her being mean.

-LINEBREAK-

We walked up to the door of the apartment and Annabeth knocked, turning back and smirking, "Time to visit the crazies" she chirped, probably excited to see them all in a more… laid back environment.

I chuckled, "I'd rather see the crazies hanging out than where we all were the last time we were with them." Annabeth's smile faded slowly and I reached out to take her hand, "Hey, you know it's fine, right?" she nodded as the door opened and Piper saw us. She grinned, "Hey guys!" she said excitedly, waving us in. I caught Eric giving me a sideways look and knew he was wondering what happened with Annabeth in the hall.

Shrugging, I whispered to him "Personal stuff", he nodded, unconvinced, and went to go say hi to Leo and the Stolls. I shuddered at the thought of them gaining Eric to their prank team, he was really competitive and that would be a dangerous addition for them…

"Percy, you okay?" I shook out of my thoughts and turned to see Hazel looking at me with concern, I smiled at her, "Yea, I'm fine" I replied, but I knew she wouldn't buy that, as I scanned the room seeing who everyone was with, Hazel nudged me, "I'm serious Percy" she said, her tone unwavering.

"Hazel, I'm okay," I said, sighing, there was no way she'd let me lie to her, obviously. I was watching Annabeth as I spoke, to assure myself she was okay, "We're getting better with things, it's just a lot of adjustment after all that happened."

I looked back at Hazel in time to see her nod in acknowledgement and then glance over her shoulder to where I'd been looking at Annabeth.

"How is she handling things?" she asked, her demeanor was casual so as to not raise suspicion, but I knew Hazel was pretty worried if she was asking, she usually trusted me to deal with things on my own.

I shrugged, "Same as me, sometimes she looks at me kind of funny, but I understand her reasoning and stuff, it's not like she's running away from me. We're better together than apart." I said, referencing to some things that had happened in, um, hell.

It wasn't the best of subjects to get into, in fact it was sort of the absolute worst subject to get into. I knew I could trust my friends with it, but even still, I'd only told Hazel and Jason about anything that had happened when we were there, Hazel because she was like my sister, and Jason because, well, we're pretty alike, I figured his viewpoint on things would help, and they had, a bit.

I knew Annabeth had talked about it with Piper, for her part, they'd gotten very close through everything that had happened. Leo and Frank knew a few things from them, but Annabeth and I hadn't really talked to them personally about it, in general we really only discussed it with each other, and those conversations weren't fun. They helped, but they were horrible at the same time.

"Let's just, focus on now, and not the past" I said, giving Hazel a small smile before walking over to Annabeth, Piper and Jason.

I nudged Annabeth as I joined the group, "What's up?" I asked, smirking.

"We were just talking about what we'd need to do if a monster attacked the school" she replied, shrugging. Jason nodded, "Yea, we don't want to be caught off guard" he added.

I scratched the back of my head, "Well, killing it is a good start." Knowing my suggestion was obvious, my shoulder tensed to brace for the impact of Annabeth punching it, "No duh, Seaweed Brain" she said, frowning at me. "What?" I replied, defensively, "It's only true!"

"Hey, where's Katie?" Hazel asked, looking around, I heard the Stolls snickering and turned to them, as did everyone else.

"What did you do?" Annabeth asked accusingly.

"N-nothing" Travis got out, still snickering, Connor composed himself before replying, "Katie's just taking a shower" he said.

We all gave Connor and Travis funny looks, "What are you laughing about then?" Leo asked, being the only one more hopeful about a prank than dreading it.

Suddenly, an ear shattering shout of horror and anger came from the bathroom;

"STOLL!" we recognized the voice as Katie's, but none of us had heard her sound quite this upset.

The entire group stared at the door in shocked silence, even the Stolls had shut themselves up.

Piper tiptoed to the door and knocked, waiting a few seconds and then slipping into the bathroom after calling Katie's name from this side.

"She let Piper in, it can't be that bad" I mumbled, leaning towards Annabeth, who swiftly shushed me.

We whispered to one another for about a minute, well, except for Travis, who sat silently. I wasn't sure, but I think I might have seen a hint of guilt in his eyes. Connor had picked up on this and decided to give his brother a bit of space, which definitely wasn't their usual style.

Finally, Piper emerged from the bathroom, and as soon as I saw her face I knew we were in big trouble. We being Travis and Connor.

"Way to go Stoll" she said, glaring daggers at Travis and Connor, obviously holding herself back from gutting the both of them. It couldn't have been too harmful of a prank, right? What was the deal?

Piper glared at everyone, motioning for us to mind our own business, and then walked over to Annabeth, joined by Hazel. I heard Piper whisper in their ears, "She's crying and can't leave the bathroom" she said, I, being the proper non-eavesdropping gentleman I am, butted in, "Can't?" I asked, confused, Piper decided to shake off the fact that I'd listened in and shrugged, "She's stuck to the floor."

My fists clenched a bit, gluing her to the floor? It was just a little too far. "I got this" I muttered, trudging over to Travis, I ignored Connor, since I knew Travis was the one pranking Katie, we all knew it, and we all knew why, well, except for Eric, maybe.

"Percy, what's-" I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him silently to the bathroom door, knocking quietly before opening the door slowly.

The sight before me was, admittedly very humorous, but I wasn't going to laugh, if it had been me getting this prank pulled on me, I'd probably laugh, but Katie'd had enough of this, If Travis wanted her attention he could talk to her like everyone else from now on, her crying was where I drew the line, and I knew Travis was somewhere near the line too.

Katie was almost completely covered in purple powder, and it must have been extremely sticky, because her clothes she'd hastily put on were stuck to her and her feet were stuck to the floor, she was curled up on the ground with her head between her knees, sobbing, and probably stuck in that position now, until she got unstickified. She managed the have her head still mobile and glanced up, seeing Travis. Her eyes were red and she gave Travis an angered but weak glare before putting her head down again. "What do you want?" She asked, her voice harsh.

"Travis is here to apologize" I said, shoving him into the room. He glanced back at me nervously, as if to say _if she wasn't stuck to the floor she'd kill me, you know that right? _I just shrugged and mouthed the words 'help her'. He nodded, his expression grim, and sat down beside her, I turned and left the bathroom, closing the door.

Hopefully, he'd do something right and she wouldn't murder him in there.

I turned from the door and noticed everyone was still pretty silent, mostly mumbling to each other, "Come on guys, are you all dead or something?" I asked, trying to get someone to be upbeat. Sure, making a death joke to a bunch of demigods wasn't the best way to go with it, but it would work.

Sure enough, Leo hopped on to the table and shouted as loud as he could, "LETS GET SOME MUSIC GOING KIDDIES!" and everyone burst out in laughter. I grinned at Leo and nodded in thanks as Jason dragged him off the coffee table and he gave me a mock salute in return.

And thus, the night began.

**A/N: Next chapter will be Eric's POV again to help him get to know a few of the characters, ask some questions he has on his mind. I considered a Truth or dare thing for the party but it seemed very overused and 13 year old-esque so I'm just going to go with music, food and talking.**


	4. The Party

**A/N: This Chapter has Multiple Points of view, shout out to smegol26's review commenting on Katie and Travis, I put in their POV's here just for you!**

**Eric**

The night had been interesting so far, to say the least.

Travis pulled some prank on Katie, and now he was in the bathroom apologizing with her. Percy mentioned that we probably wouldn't see either of them for a while.

Leo was now playing DJ so that we had music going on, and was acting as the resident comedian at the same time, the quality of his jokes was highly debatable though.

As the song that was playing ended, Leo spoke up, "Okay, so, the lovey dovey kids have threatened to skewer me to the school flagpole if I don't play at least one slow song for them," he said, glaring at Piper, who just smirked back. "So here we go, all the single people can enjoy watching the couples' awkward attempts at dancing" he added, pressing play and hopping away from the laptop.

Piper grabbed Jason and dragged him by the hand into the clear area they'd made in the room for dancing, as Hazel did with a very reluctant looking Frank, who was stuttering excuses about how he was clumsy and couldn't dance at all.

The only guy who made the first move was Percy, which was surprising, I'd seen the guy dance, while it was highly entertaining, I didn't picture him as someone who volunteered himself to dance with anyone.

This was his girlfriend though, so maybe he didn't care about making a fool of himself.

I watched as he stuck his hand out to her and helped her out of her seat, grinning, and they went to dance. They acted really casual around one another, no matter what they were doing. It was like they didn't care what they did as long as they did it together.

Meanwhile, I continued sitting down, I glanced over at Connor, who was lying on the couch lazily, half asleep already from the song. Then I looked for Leo, who happened to take a seat right beside me as I turned, scaring the hell out of me.

"Holy shit!" I shout out, jumping away from him. He just grinned like a clinically insane guy, "Can you believe these losers?" he said, very loudly, earning a few glares, but I figured Leo didn't care, and the couples dancing didn't really seem annoyed, like they were used to it. Percy and Annabeth hadn't even bothered to look over.

I nodded towards them while I had Leo's attention, while he was about as serious and mature as a four year old in a candy shop, he was good friends with all of these people, and obviously they all knew things about each other I didn't. "So what's their story?" I asked, meaning Percy and Annabeth.

"What do you mean, their story?" he asked, glancing over at me, for a second he almost looked nervous, and I wondered why, but didn't press it.

"I dunno, they seem so close and stuff, just isn't common. Usually high school couples are just annoying make-out-in-the-halls-forever couples that break up by the end of the year"

"Huh" he said, mulling over my words for a moment, "Well for starters, they aren't really a high school couple, apparently they've known each other since they were twelve, and were probably in love with each other for years by the time they finally got together, which was only a few years ago" he said.

"Since they were twelve? How'd they meet?" I asked. Percy had never mentioned her, not even once, even though he'd apparently known her for over three years by the time we met.

"At the camp we're all from, obviously" he said, as if it was obvious.

I realized it should have been obvious, he'd told me about the camp a few times, and even mentioned today that the new students were all from the camp.

"Oh right, I remember he said that all the new students coming were friends from his camp" I said.

Leo chuckled, "Well, some of them being a bit more than just friends" he said, glancing up at the three pairings dancing.

"What about you?" I asked, he seemed like he almost wished he could be dancing too, despite his jokes. He shrugged though, "It's complicated, and I don't really feel like talking about it" I realized how somber Leo had become in the past few minutes, and decided not to press into the subject any.

"So how exactly did they end up so close and stuff?" I asked, moving back to the topic of Percy and Annabeth, I didn't know why I was so curious about it, but there was something about them that was just, as if they had some deep connection that no one else could understand.

"Percy and Annabeth… they went through a lot of stuff together, basically through hell and back together and a whole lot more" Leo said hesitantly, "It's not really my set of stories to share, I barely know anything about a lot of it anyways. I'm not one of their most trusted friends" he said, he didn't sound particularly sad about the last part, but the sad vibe he was giving off was there, it just, he wasn't sad about himself, but about them instead.

"What are you then? You guys all seem super close" I ventured out to figure they'd all went through something together, that didn't really affect their relationships but gave them all something in common. I felt like it was important, but I was also making myself feel crazy drawing all these invisible lines between this group of teenagers. I was acting like a conspiracy theorist or something.

"I'm their friend, but I'm more for comic relief at this point, a lot has happened to them, to all of us really. The Stolls and I, well, we like to keep things upbeat" he said.

So something had happened to them all… I was slightly creeped out at how I guessed that.

"Sounds like you guys all had pretty rough lives" I said sympathetically, hearing that these guys all had some sort of bad experience they went through together was sort of a shock, they all seemed like pretty regular and happy people on the outside, which made them either extremely resilient people, or really good actors.

Leo sighed, "Yea well, more so for the rest of us than the Stolls and Katie, they weren't right in the middle of it all, but Percy and Annabeth, they're on a whole different level than any of us. I'd rather not get into it, and I can almost guarantee no one else will want to talk about it, we prefer to move on from it instead." He stated, his voice so far from the happy and hyper guy I'd met at school.

"Anyways," I decided to drop the subject, "Is there any food in here, I'm starving" I said, Leo's grin returned to his face, lighting him up like a fire.

"I thought you'd never ask" he said with a chuckle, leaping out of his chair and making his way to the Kitchen. I took one last glance at Percy and Annabeth dancing, her face burrowed in his chest, before turning and putting my curiosity out of my head. For now, I needed food, and Leo seemed like he was going to supply that.

"Welcome to Leo's Kitchen" he said, shuffling around the kitchen grabbing things. He was loud enough to bring Connor out of his nap, and I turned as he pushed himself off the couch and walked over slowly, taking a seat on the stool beside me. "Let me guess Leo, Tacos?" Connor asked. Leo nodded quickly before setting the rest of the ingredients on the table and starting to cook the meat, "Of course" he said, and Connor groaned.

"What's wrong with Tacos?" I asked. Leo gave me a look, "Nothing, they're my best dish" he answered, huffing out his chest with pride. Connor shrugged, "It's not like they're bad, it's just, it's the only food he'll make for us. There's a certain level of tolerance" he told me. I shrugged in response, I didn't have any problems with tacos right now.

The slow song had ended, and a more upbeat one started up as the others, minus Katie and Travis, came and joined us in the kitchen.

"Did you kids have fun?" Leo asked teasingly. They all ignored him, but Connor chuckled quietly, and that was enough for Leo.

Percy went around the island as the others sat down and opened the fridge beside Leo, "I'm not having your tacos again, dude, I'm pretty sure my insides are still clogged up with all the tacos we had over the summer" he said, grabbing something. "I'm making hamburgers, anyone want one?" I put my hand up along with Annabeth, Jason and Connor.

Piper looked at the food cooking nervously, "Hey Leo…" she began, but Leo cut her off with his answer, "I have some Tofu for you in the fridge Beauty Queen" he said, without looking away from the stove.

Piper sighed in relief, and I guessed she was a vegetarian. Leo finished with the taco meat and put it all in a dish, and Percy took the frying pan to cook the hamburgers.

-LINEBREAK-

We sat around the TV eating our food, trying to pick out a movie to watch. It was only 9, so we had time.

"Any suggestions?" Piper asked, looking around. Percy's hand shot up, and he was moving around in his seat expectantly like a hyper five year old who knows what 1+1 is. I saw Piper roll her eyes before answering, "We don't have The Little Mermaid, Percy."

Percy frowned as the room burst into laughter, Annabeth tried not to laugh, but ended up just covering her mouth to make it less audible. I heard him mutter something about how he was going to ask for something else before another voice spoke up.

"How about Grown Ups?"

We all turned to see Travis, and behind him, Katie had just come out of the bathroom, clean, not crying, and not stuck to the floor.

They walked over to the couches and sat down next to each other with Connor, as if nothing had happened. I saw Piper and Katie's eyes meet and Piper shot her a knowing look, as if to say she knew everything, and Katie's face went red before she averted her eyes and looked at her toes.

"Sure, Grown Ups it is" Annabeth said, shrugging. Piper decided to go with it and found the DVD, putting it in and taking her seat next to Jason and Leo with the remote.

I sat next to Percy and could hear him and Annabeth whispering as the movie began.

"Something definitely happened" Annabeth said, leaning against his shoulder.

"Yea, obviously he helped her get all the sticky purple gunk off her and cleaned her up" Percy replied quickly.

"I mean other than that, of course that happened you doofus" they went back and forth.

"What do you mean, other than that?"

"She isn't crying, and did you see how she blushed when Piper caught her eye? I think Travis finally made a move after he apologized"

"You sure?"

"Come on Percy, it's obvious"

I glanced over at Travis and Katie. Apparently Percy and Annabeth, and everyone else, for that matter, had failed to look over at them recently in their whisperings. Katie was leaning against Travis, smiling as she watched the movie, and Travis had his arm settled around her shoulders. Only Connor seemed aware of this so far, but his face looked like he'd known this was going to happen the entire time.

I nudged Percy, interrupting his and Annabeth's conversation, and they both looked over at me, I nodded towards Katie and Travis. They looked over and Annabeth smiled, nuzzling further into Percy and glancing back at me. I gave her a _there's your answer now shut up so I can enjoy the movie_ look and she shrugged, turning her head to the screen.

I grinned to myself for actually beating her in some way, because up until now it hadn't seemed possible, she was just too damn scary. My competitive side had managed to find a way to win though. Good for it, now I could feel smug about something that didn't matter at all.

**Travis**

I grinned as Katie leaned against me. I quickly fist bumped Connor behind our backs to thank him.

This plan had seemed pretty stupid at first, and I'd tried to find a way out of it the entire time because I didn't want to do it to Katie, but now it had worked, so I had to give my brother some acknowledgement for that.

It had been a simple idea, do something really bad to Katie when she took her shower for the party, hence making her bodywash and shampoo a little more… sticky. Then when she's stuck in the bathroom, get me in there to apologize, and I'd help her and hopefully be able to get her.

I'd been really against it because I knew it'd really upset Katie, which it had, but as soon as Percy did our work for us by dragging me in there and leaving us alone for me to apologize, I just let myself do and say whatever felt right. I'd apologized as much as possible for the prank, and then helped her de-sticky herself and get her off the floor, I'd shown her how to do the rest of her by herself, because well, I aint gonna unsticky her shirt from her body.

Then I'd snuck out of the bathroom while the others were in the kitchen and went to the girls room, getting a change of clothes for Katie. By then she'd forgiven me, and once she'd gotten cleaned up I talked to her and finally kissed her.

It was probably the best moment in my life, even better than any of my best pranks with Connor.

After that we'd come out of the bathroom together, ignoring the looks we got from everyone.

I wasn't sure what Katie had thought of the kiss and last bit in the bathroom, until she sat down beside me, hiding a smile.

Now, we sat in silence together watching the movie with everyone else, and I rubbed her shoulder comfortingly, it felt great to have my arm around her and every time she shifted against me, it just reminded me that she was there.

Luckily for me, I knew Katie wasn't a very mushy romantic, because I wasn't either.

If I had been, I probably wouldn't have been stupid enough to try and get her attention to show I liked her by pranking her to no ends.

Though, she was still the best target because of her reactions, so even though I'd gotten my point across to her, I wasn't so sure her days as a victim to Connor and I were over.

**Katie**

After the movie, Percy, Annabeth and Eric left. Percy had to take Eric home and then get home himself with Annabeth, who looked excited to be spending her first night living with Percy and his parents, to say the least.

I could relate to the feelings she probably had right now, as I was living in the same apartment as Travis. A few hours ago, this wouldn't have mattered quite as much, as it would just be the guy I like who tortures me with pranks by him and his brother living in the same place as me, but now it was the guy I like who kissed me tonight living in the same place as me. My face got hot just thinking of that!

I went to the girl's bedroom as soon as everyone started to go about their own business, hoping to avoid any questions, but of course that wouldn't happen. Piper was the daughter of Aphrodite, of course she noticed and realized everything. Annabeth had probably figured it out too, but she wasn't here.

As soon as I dropped onto my bed, Piper opened the door to the bedroom and came in, jumping on to the bed with me, grinning. I groaned even before she spoke, knowing what was coming.

"Soo… you seemed fairly happy during the movie, for someone sitting next to the guy who got you stuck to the floor" she said, an evil grin on her face as if she was going to use this against me until I told her everything.

I figured I'd better get it over with now, instead of have to deal with her nagging me.

"Travis apologized for the prank, said it was too harsh and that he and Connor shouldn't have done it" I said slowly, trying to see if she would take that and go, but no such luck.

"Annnnnnnd?" she asked, her voice hopeful and smug, the weirdest combination I'd ever heard.

I sighed, "And then he helped me get cleaned up, got me a change of clothes, said a few things to me…" I paused, "and then kissed me" I said quickly and quietly.

Piper squealed, bouncing up and down on the bed. For a girl who didn't like being an Aphrodite kid, she was a lot like her mom sometimes. "I knew it, knew it knew it knew it!" she proclaimed, giggling.

"Piper!" I hissed, trying not to be loud, lest someone else hear them and come in.

"I'm sorry, but you guys are so cute together and both denied it but I knew you liked each other!" she said, grinning.

"Can we just, not talk about this with anyone, I want to sort things out with him before I have to deal with all of you" I said, frowning at her.

She shrugged, still grinning, "Annabeth already knows, so does Percy and his friend, Eric, they noticed you cuddling with him during the movie. Besides that, Annabeth was already suspicious." She said. I nodded simply, "I kind of figured as much, Annabeth is too smart to not figure it out"

"So, can you finally admit it?" she asked, looking at me intently.

I sighed and leaned back, dropping on to my pillow, "Fine" I huffed out, annoyed at her persistence.

"I like Travis, a lot, can I go to bed now?"

Piper hopped off my bed and left the room, giggling like an idiot, and I closed my eyes, trying to get to sleep.

**A/N: Next chapter will fast forward a bit to the end of the week, and we'll see if we can get a little action going! Keep the reviews coming, love getting feedback from you guys :P**


	5. Evil Poodles

**A/N: This Chapter is a bit longer than the others, it and the next one will have almost no time gap between them in the Plot, as a lot is happening consecutively and if I put it all in one chapter it'd be like around 6000 words. This one pushes close to 4000 as it is. Hope it's good though, first time I've really done a Female Point of view, hope it's alright, even though that part is short and not very in depth with the character!**

**Eric**

The rest of the week went about as well as you'd expect, went to my classes and got a little bit of homework, which is the be expected, but sucks. Got to know Percy's friends more, especially Leo and Connor, I would have gotten to know Travis a lot better as well, because he normally spends all his time with his brother, but he decided to spend most of his week with Katie instead. Go figure.

I also got back into my friendship with Percy, and got to know Annabeth some. They were still a mystery to me in how they acted around each other, both the romantic stuff, and just how they were in general.

The female population at Goode took notice of Percy's presence as well as those of his friends, now, Percy may not be a big, buff jock, but the guy was strong and it did show, and according to the looks he got from some girls in the hall, he was good looking too.

His friends were pretty similar, the guys were pretty muscular all around, except for Leo. They all caught the attention of the girls in the school, much to the annoyance of their girlfriends.

Although, their girlfriends seemed more annoyed with the looks that the guys got and not so much concerned about losing them. It was an odd amount of trust to put into a teenage guy, I mean come on. We aren't known for our restraint.

On the bright side of things, it was Friday, and we were almost through all of our classes. Right now I was in English, which I had with Percy, Travis, Connor, Jason, Piper and Annabeth.

It turned out Annabeth was in the majority of her classes with Percy, and they were happy to accept that without question.

I leaned back in my seat beside Connor and Travis as Mr. Blofis began the lesson.

"Okay class, today we will be discussing a little bit of Greek Mythology, so it's going to be a laid back class" he said, this got the attention of a few students, who seemed glad.

Paul continued, "There will be a small questionnaire assignment to go with our discussion today, it'll be easy marks as long as you pay some attention." Free marks. That got everyone's attention.

We went through the class, talking about all the Gods and Goddesses of Greek Mythology, and talking about some of the stories about Greek Heroes. Greek Mythology was definitely interesting, and the stories were pretty cool, so this class was turning out to be alright.

I noticed that Percy's camp friends, along with Percy himself, seemed to know a lot on the subject, it was odd that they all knew so much about it compared to everyone else, but hey, maybe it just happens to be something they like.

Paul was asking questions to the class, "What is the name of the deepest part of the Underworld?" he asked, looking around the class.

I heard a faint whimper behind me and turned to see Annabeth's pale face, Percy's own face had paled as well, but he seemed slightly more in control of himself. I sent him a questioning look but the way he looked back at me told me to drop it.

One of the kids in the class put their hand up and answered, "Tartarus" she said, and so Mr. Blofis congratulated her on the right answer and began to move on, but he paused, "Yes Percy?" he asked, I turned to see that Percy had raised his hand, and managed to regain a bit of composure, Annabeth looked ghostly though, I frowned, wondering what was up with them.

"I think Annabeth is sick, can I take her to the nurse's office?" he asked, looking at Paul with pleading eyes.

There must've been some understanding of what was going on between Percy and his Step Father, because Mr. Blofis simply nodded, "Sure, make sure she's okay" he said. His tone made it sound like that statement had a double meaning. _Make sure she's okay…_

I hadn't even bothered to look at the others during all this, they all looked worried, even the Stolls, who basically never stopped smiling at school.

Mr. Blofis went on with his questions before handing out the assignment sheet, I got one for Percy and one for Annabeth since they didn't return to the class when the bell rang. I went to get my things for my next class, but I couldn't shake the image of Annabeth's pale face, her usually intimidating eyes full of something I'd never seen her express before, fear. I'd gotten to know Annabeth enough to know that nothing I knew of scared her, and I wanted to find out what had set her off in class. I had to wait though, and get either her or Percy alone to bring it up.

-LINEBREAK-

I had to admit, hanging out with everyone at their apartment after school almost every day was pretty cool. There was no shortage of entertainment between everyone. Especially having Percy, Leo and the Stolls, they all had their ways of making things fun.

"Hey Eric!" Connor shouted across the room, I turned and saw him wave me over, he was with Travis and Percy. I made my way over to them, "What's up?" I asked, grinning, they all had evil looks in their eyes, this would be fun.

"We're going to set something up for Piper and Jason in a small Plaza near here" Travis said, "Just to give them a little…" he trailed off and Percy let himself into the conversation to finish his train of thought;

"Alone time"

"But, we could use an extra set of hands to help, you want in? Leo's on distraction duty, and he's going to get them into the trap later, so he can't help" Connor told me, I smiled contentedly, they trusted me on a prank, how could I say no? "I'm all about it, let's do this" I said with confidence.

I followed their lead in heading to the door, Travis grabbed his backpack, which probably had stuff for the prank, and headed out the door. Annabeth came over to Percy with her eyebrows raised. I could see him explaining, saying they were just going for a walk.

I hadn't noticed it before, but Percy was wearing a wristwatch. I hadn't seen it on him before now, must have been new.

He gave Annabeth a kiss on the cheek and she decided to leave it at that, turning back to Hazel. Percy turned and come over to me with a sneaky grin on his face, "Good to go" he said, giving me a thumbs up, and we headed out the door with the Stoll brothers.

I looked up at the night sky as we walked down the street, which was surprisingly empty, usually there were always cars or people around in New York.

The sky was lit up by the full moon above us, it wasn't too late, but it was dark out. Luckily my dad was fine with me staying out late as long as I was back safe and got up for school in the morning, he was pretty relaxed that way, maybe he knew I would take it as a challenge to be up and stay out late. I suppose he was probably similar as a kid anyways, so he knew how to handle me.

The Stolls practically skipped down the street ahead of me, Percy decided to stick by my side, as we lagged behind them a little bit. I figured now was as good a time as ever to ask about what had happened in class today.

"Hey Percy?"

"Hmm?" he turned his head to me, I took a slow breath before going on, having no idea why I was so nervous about asking, but I was. I just felt like something bad was going to happen if I did.

"What happened to you and Annabeth in English class today?" I saw his features darken and he looked down, but all that did was make me more curious.

"I mean, you were all cheery and answering all the questions, and actually seemed interested, and then the one came up and it was like someone had stabbed you in the gut"

I saw Percy take a deep breath before responding, "Look, Eric, you're my friend and all, but there are some things I just… Can't. Talk about" he looked up at me with almost pleading eyes, asking me to leave the topic alone.

"Alright" I said quietly, lowering my head in sadness, it had been pretty much what I was worried about. Now things were going to be tense between us.

Percy patted my back, "It's not your fault, it's complicated. I just can't-" Percy froze, I stopped with him and looked for the Stolls, I saw them, stopped as well, Travis was looking around, Connor was glancing back at us.

"What's-" Percy cut me off, "Shh, quiet" he whispered in a fierce tone, I almost felt threatened, but I had a weird feeling the anger wasn't directed at me…

Percy kept looking around, he froze for a moment and then put his forearm against my chest, slowly pushing me back, "Away from the alley" he said in a hushed voice, his entire demeanor and how he was acting was freaking me out just enough for me to comply without asking questions.

I was about the snap and ask what was going on when I heard a low growl coming from the alley. My eyes widened and looked over to it in time to see a big, dark mass of fur make its way out of the Alley slowly, growling. It turned to face Percy, who was tensed up, but he wasn't backing away. I saw the Stolls tiptoeing their way over to us, behind the gigantic evil dog.

The massif turned its attention to me, and I saw its red eyes glaring at me, and sunk to the ground, my back against the brick walls of the buildings along the street.

"Percy, what is that thing?" I asked, my voice cracking.

He didn't turn his head away from it, "Eric, what do you see?" He asked, his voice steely.

"Um… a huge evil looking dog bear hybrid thing..." I paused and wondered aloud "What do you see?"

He sighed, "It's called a Hellhound, Eric, and we're going to kill it"

My eyes widened, kill it? Was he nuts!? "How do you plan on doing that?" I exclaimed, my voice managed to rise past a fearful whimper into a panicked shout.

I caught a glimpse of the Stolls, who were much closer, Travis unzipped his schoolbag and reached in, pulling out…

A sword?

"Like this!" I heard Travis shout, it took me a minute to register that he was answering my question as he drove his sword into the side of the 'Hellhound's' head, the big dog hadn't seen it coming and suddenly crumbled to dust. Travis let out a short "Woop!" in celebration before we heard more growls.

Percy turned to the Stolls, "Connor, do you-" Connor shook his head, "It's in my bag, I didn't even think of it" I wondered if that meant Connor kept a sword hidden in his schoolbag too. I watched as Percy muttered something I couldn't understand and pulled a pen out of his pocket. I was about to question the sanity of my friend right there and then, until he took the cap off and it turned into a sword.

_Okay… I suppose sanity isn't an option anymore_.

Percy took off his watch and tossed it to Connor, "Press the button when you put it on, Tyson gave it to me a few weeks ago" he said, and I saw Connor hastily putting the watch on his wrist as the growls got louder. "Guys…" I said faintly, trying to warn them, but my mouth couldn't form words.

Another hellhound leapt out of the dark alley as Connor got the watch on, he turned and saw it, quickly pressing the button and the watch expanded, turning into a shield.

At this point, I was just going to have to roll with all the batshit crazy stuff happening around me. It would certainly make it easier if I saved all questions until the end of the ride and made myself useful. I was not going to let these things beat us and kill us before I could get some answers. Losing was not something I enjoyed.

The Stolls decided to work together, Connor blocking the hound's attacks and keeping its attention while Travis attacked.

More of them came out of the alley way, growling. Percy stood in the street, holding his sword in the moonlight so it caught their attention.

"Here doggies" he said, his expression hard. I'd never seen Percy like this before, today was just showing all different sides of my friend.

One lunged and he stepped to the side before slashing at its leg, all in one swift motion. He stabbed it in the side as it tried to turn and it crumbled to dust, another mutt charged him and he rolled to the side, taking a swing at it and missing by an inch. His face turned to me and then to my side and I realized what he was seeing and turned in time to see a hellhound had leapt towards me in the air, I dove to the side, stumbling as I landed to pick my feet up and stay moving.

"Eric!" I heard Percy's voice and turned in his direction, seeing his sword soaring through the air towards me, I managed to catch it as I got close and saw him, weaponless, rolling aside from the jaws of a hellhound and punching it in the snout.

I didn't have time to wonder why he gave me his sword when he could use it, and turned back to the hellhound that had attacked me, it reared and jumped towards me, and I leapt backwards, shuffling back to keep my balance and wobbling from side to side, it was close to me still, but this time I had a weapon, I planted a foot forwards and swung wildly as it charged again. I felt the sword pass through and turned in time to see it cut clean through the neck of the monster, making it crumble to dust.

I didn't have time to marvel in the fact that I'd just done that as another one rammed into me, knocking me back, somehow, I'd raised the sword to block its teeth from digging into my side without even thinking of it. It lunged at me and I fumbled to the side, slashing as I lost my balance. It turned to dust like the others and I could see Percy moving towards me. He put his hands out towards me and shouted.

"Sword please!" I got my footing and threw the sword in his direction, a hellhound swung a massive paw at him and he tucked and rolled away, grabbing the sword out of the air as he came up. He quickly spun and slashed at the hound, cutting the top half of its head off and making it disintegrate. The Stoll brothers ran towards us, one Hellhound left following them, the stopped as it launched itself into the air at them, and Connor raised the shield up, as the monster got close he put all his weight into the shield and rammed the mutt in the side, making it land on its back, and Travis leapt onto the stomach, stabbing his sword into it and jumping off quickly.

I let myself fall back to the ground since all of those things were dead, and realized how heavily I was breathing as I sat in the street, the adrenalin leaving my body sore and tired.

I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me to my feet and saw Percy, putting his arm around me and supporting me. Good thing, since my legs felt like balloons.

"Come on Eric, we're getting back to the apartment." He said, as the Stolls jogged ahead of us, looking in all the other alleys for more monsters, but they found none.

"What was all that?" I asked drowsily as we approached the apartment building. I noticed Percy smile, "That was part of the question you asked me earlier" he said, and my exhausted mind tried to think back, what question? My head was still reeling with images of the fight with those giant black dogs. I shook my head to try and clear it.

"Stupid evil poodles" I muttered sarcastically. Percy let out a chuckle, because apparently this wasn't a traumatic experience for him like it was for me. "Don't worry Eric, I'll explain everything, just stay awake until we get to the apartment, I don't feel like carrying your lazy butt."

I managed a weak smile.

**Annabeth**

I wouldn't say I was worried.

But, I was worried.

Before you judge, what would you do if your boyfriend and his buddies decide to go for a walk and he says he'll be fine, and then they burst through the door with torn clothes, blood and grime?

My point exactly.

I'd immediately gone to help Percy carry his friend Eric. Who seemed to pass out almost as soon as he got through the door. I grabbed his other arm and put it over my shoulders, holding him up. I looked over at Percy as we took him to the guy's bedroom, "What happened?" I asked, how they managed to get this beat up in twenty minutes was beyond me, but Percy somehow always found a way to get hurt.

"Hellhounds, a whole pack of them" he replied, setting Eric down on the nearest bed and sighing in relief now that he didn't have to carry him. I looked down at Eric with a twinge of sympathy, he was by far the most beat up. Percy went and got a first aid kit, coming back and taking some bandages out.

"What did he see?" I asked, referring to Eric.

Percy shrugged, "He saw exactly what we saw" he replied, I looked down at Eric is surprise, he was 17, it shouldn't be possible for him to be alive without realizing he was a demigod at this point. "Is he clear-sighted?" I asked, thinking he might be like Rachel, and I looked up at Percy.

He shook his head as he applied a bandage, "The way he handled a sword and the fact that he's alive right now. He can only be a Demigod." I noticed a cut on Eric's arm and grabbed a bandage from the first aid kid, patching up the wound. "How is he this old without knowing?" I wondered aloud. Percy finished bandaging him up and crossed his arms, "No idea, probably a Minor God's kid or something." I could see Percy frowning, "What is it Percy?" I asked, walking around the bed to him. "Nothing" he said dismissively. "I can tell when you're lying, Seaweed Brain" I nudged him with my shoulder, standing in front of him, "What's wrong?"

Percy sighed, "If it hadn't been for me showing up in his life again, he'd still be enjoying the ignorance he had and thinking he was mortal, living peacefully" he said, looking down at Eric with guilt in his eyes. I put a hand on his face and made him face me. "Percy, you know that's not your fault" I told him, looking him in the eyes, he tried to argue, of course, "It's true, those Hellhounds only came because he was with me and the Stoll's, and I could've prot-" I cut him off with a kiss, putting my hands on the back of his neck and pulling him towards me. He protested for about half a second before thinking better of it and relaxing, resting his hands gently on my waist.

I pulled away, resting my forehead against his, "You did your best, and he's okay, stop trying to beat yourself up, Percy" I said, and he decided to just not and accept the advice this time, a small smile on his lips. "Good choice" I told him, giving him another quick Peck before someone cleared their throat and I jumped back a bit in surprise.

**Eric**

I'd woken up again to find myself lying on a bed in the middle of a Percy and Annabeth moment. I managed to clear my throat, which hurt since my throat felt dry and scratchy. Annabeth jumped back and I smiled weakly, "Sorry" I said, my voice was a bit raspy, which was annoying, but at least I could talk. "Just have a few questions and then you guys can go back to smoochin'" I told them, slowly pushing myself into a sitting position against the pillow on the bed, Percy chuckled at my words and helped me up. "Take it easy" he said, "You're pretty cut up" I looked down at myself and saw my torn up clothes and some bandages and dried blood. "How?" I hadn't forgotten the dogs, but I didn't remember feeling myself getting cut, I'd just felt tired afterwards. "I didn't even realize I got hurt" I added, to avoid confusion.

Percy nodded, "It can be like that sometimes, most of your adrenalin left you and you felt tired and sore, but you didn't feel the pain from when you actually got hit" he said.

"So, what exactly is going on with me?" I asked, half expecting them to tell me I was crazy, or imagined the entire thing.

Annabeth spoke up first, "Do you know both of your parents?" she asked, it seemed like an off-base question, but I decided to just go with it.

"Nope."

Percy and Annabeth shared a look, and then Annabeth continued, "Eric, you know about all the Greek Myths, with the gods and stuff? Like in our English class today?" She asked, her eyes flashed with pain for a second even as she just mentioned the class today, not even being asked about what happened.

I nodded in reply, and this time Percy spoke, "Well, the Gods, and all the other Myths… They're real" he said.

I stared at him, ready to deny it. Ready to tell him it was crazy. I couldn't though, after the hellhounds, and him saying it, a lot of things from when I was younger and from the past week with Percy and his friends, even from knowing him the last time he'd been in school with me, it all made a lot of sense.

I couldn't tell if that meant he was right or if we were all just crazy together. Either way, I'd rather be crazy with other people than keep going on thinking I was crazy as a kid alone.

"Um" I replied smartly, and Percy chuckled, "Don't worry, you're not supposed to just accept it, this'll be a lot to process" he added, and I nodded to him.

"The things that attacked you guys, Hellhounds, they're just one form of monster that attacks people like us." Annabeth said.

I thought over her words for a moment, "People like us?"

Annabeth smiled at me, "Take a guess, who fights Monsters in the Myths?" she asked, and I could see the names go through my head.

Theseus, Orpheus, Heracles…Perseus. I looked at Percy, realizing how much his name actually said about him.

"Demigods?" I asked, even though I knew it was the answer, I needed confirmation on something like this.

Annabeth nodded, "Lucky you Eric, you're half God. Just like the rest of us"

**A/N: I'll probably start doing the next chapter tomorrow night or Thursday, it's already pretty mapped out in my head! Remember to Review, I love to read reviews and talk to you guys!**


	6. Consider the Following

**A/N: Getting through Eric getting past the initial shock of the Demigod news here. Plus some serious stuff from Percy. Not sure if I'm any good at serious stuff, but we'll see what you guys think :D If there's any grammar or spelling stuff in this chapter, I apologize, I wrote it all tonight, and it's like 4am as I'm adding in the Authors Note before Publishing it. You lucky ducks getting two Chapters in Two nights.**

**Eric**

I managed to reach the living room, with some help from Percy.

He set me down on the couch and took the seat beside me as Annabeth went over to all the others and started talking to them, probably spreading the news that I was a demigod.

"So, you're all demigods?" I asked, looking to Percy for an answer. He nodded and looked over at our friends, I saw the Stolls didn't look too beat up, and Percy barely even seemed to have been touched, he just had some tears in his clothes.

"Yup, all of us, that's what our camp we all met at is for, Demigods like you and me" he informed me, putting a hand on my shoulder reassuringly, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it eventually, we all did, and you've got us all here to help you out with things along the way."

I smiled in thanks.

"So, who are all of your godly parents?" I asked, looking over the group.

"I think its best you find out from them personally instead of me telling you." He said, I turned to him, "What about you?"

He shrugged and I heard something, I turned and saw that the sink in the kitchen was running, but no one had turned it on. "Poseidon" the name rang out from Percy and I connected it to the sink running, and as I did, the flow of water stopped abruptly.

Looking at Percy in awe, I spoke again, "So, you can control water?" he nodded, a smirk on his face, "That and a whole lot of other stuff." I couldn't help but wonder what he meant by 'other stuff'.

"So um, do we know who my mom is?" I asked, looking at the floor. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or bad thing to be able to find out who my mom was after all these years, on one hand, it'd be cool to know, on the other, the lady did leave me. I guess she kind of had no choice though, as a Goddess and all. I'd have to take it as a win to find out.

Percy simply shook his head, giving me a sympathetic look, "We can't figure out until she claims you as her kid" he said, patting my back. I nodded in understanding, "How does that work?"

"Well," Percy explained, "The symbol of your godly parent will appear above your head if and when they claim you. It's a lot more likely to happen at camp, I've never seen it happen outside of it before. We could visit the Camp this weekend if you want to see it and see if you get claimed"

I nodded, feeling a blast of excitement course through me. If this camp was for Demigods, it would probably be pretty cool to see it. "That'd be cool" I said, sinking into the couch so I could relax some. The past half an hour or so had been a little too intense for my body.

The others were still talking amongst themselves in a group in the kitchen, but I saw Leo make his way out of the mob and make his way over to him, a grin on his face. Percy patted me on the back and got up off the couch, "Good luck with him" he told me, passing Leo and heading to the others. I glared daggers at him but Percy just looked back at me over his shoulder with an evil grin.

Leo cannonballed onto the couch, landing beside me in a heap, "So, demigod now huh buddy?" he asked loudly, chuckling.

I nodded, looking over at him, "Yep, does this mean I'm going to become as crazy as you?" I asked, smirking at him.

Leo, as always, showed no sign of discouragement from my comment and kept going on with what he was saying.

"This'll be great, now we don't have to bother being on guard around you 'cause we don't have to hide who we are and all that stuff"

I stopped moving, he had a good point that I hadn't even thought about. Almost all the strange things about this group, stuff he'd been wondering about and probably even more things than he imagined were probably all connected to the fact that they were Demigods. Then in English today, this was why they all knew all the answers to the Greek Myths stuff we talked about.

_Then what was Annabeth's sudden sickness all about?_ I wondered, now I knew it had to be something about their Demigod lives, but Leo had hinted that they didn't like to talk about it, and if it was something related to the Greek myths, I wasn't entirely sure I would want to hear about it. It certainly had an effect on Percy and Annabeth, and I hadn't seen Leo without a smile at all since I've known him except for when he was talking about it with me. Even if I'd only known Leo for five days now, that one time stood out, he was ALWAYS smiling.

"…You'll get to see camp and learn to fight and stuff" Leo rambled on. I put a hand up, signalling for him to stop. "Slow down man" I muttered, "My head hurts as is."

Leo just quieted down, his smile still ever present. His head perked up suddenly, "By the way," he said, sticking a hand out for me to shake, as if we'd just met a minute ago, "Leo Valdez, Son of Hephaestus at your service."

I shook his hand and managed a small smile, "Good to know" I said.

So, Percy was Poseidon, Leo was Hephaestus, I still wondered about the rest.

Slowly, I pushed myself off the couch, Leo jumped up, ready to grab me so I wouldn't fall over, but I managed to get to my feet, feeling a bit less tired. "I'm alright" I told him, slowly walking over to the kitchen. Leo followed behind me cautiously, ready to help me. I was glad that he took that seriously at least. I supposed that while he was a crazy maniac and never really seemed serious, he was still a Demigod, and that probably meant he knew how I felt. I sensed that I had some new connection with them all now, like now that I was one of them, they had my back even more than before, and I wanted to learn to fight, so I could return the favour to them.

Travis hopped off one of the Stools and offered it to me to sit, I thanked him and slowly sat down. "So, Demigods, huh?" I said, trying to sound cool and confident, but my voice was still a little bit raspy. They all nodded, and Percy looked at them all, "So, Eric is a bit curious as to who everyone's parent is. Anyone mind if we do a little roll call?"

Everyone was okay with it, with Leo putting his hand up, "I'm exempt, I already told him mine" he said from behind Piper.

Percy smirked, "I told him mine too, so it's just the rest of you" he nodded to the Stolls to begin.

"Hermes" they both said, shrugging.

Katie spoke next, "Demeter."

"Jupiter" Jason said, he caught my confused look and added, "A few of us have Roman godly parents, it's weird."

Supporting the Roman demigod factor, Hazel spoke up, "Pluto."

Piper sighed loudly before speaking, "Aphrodite."

I heard the Stolls start chuckling and Piper glared at them, grabbing a Dagger from her pocket, but Leo spoke up, "Whoa there Beauty Queen, no gutting anyone in the kitchen please." She hesitantly put the dagger away, grumbling about killing the Stolls in their sleep. Leo shrugged at the group, "Continue?"

"Mars" Frank said, I could see that making some sense, he was huge and muscular.

Annabeth was the last to speak, "Athena."

I glanced between her and Percy, remembering something from class. "Don't… Poseidon and Athena like, hate each other's guts?"

Percy just shrugged, "That's their problem. I hate other people instead." Annabeth put her hands in her pockets, "I tried hating Percy already."

I raised an eyebrow at her, and I could hear Percy snickering as he walked over to the fridge and opened it. "You tried to hate Percy?" I asked, never heard of someone actively trying to hate another.

She sighed, "Yep, when we first met and I found out his dad was Poseidon, I ignored him, I insulted him, for most of our quest we had to go on I was pretty mean to him, but he was too nice. I realized that just because my mom hated his dad didn't mean I had to hate him, which was good, because I got my best friend out of it" she said. I just sat there for a moment. Imagining a twelve year old Percy having some girl hating on him just because of his dad. Not surprisingly, I could easily see Percy being way too nice to her even through the insults, it was something he would do. Percy was probably too nice for his own good.

Then again, he had said not five minutes ago that he hated people, and he'd apparently been fighting monsters and learning to fight since he was twelve. It was probably just as likely he could be pretty mean if he wanted.

"Sounds like you guys had an interesting relationship" I said, a little bit quieter than my usual tone.

Percy was making a sandwich on the counter behind me, but he spoke up. "Still do, in fact" he said casually. I looked over to see him smirking, looking over at Annabeth as if making sure she was alright. She just smiled back playfully, "Yea, especially the past year or so."

The room got very quiet. Way too quiet for comfort.

"Uh, guys?" I said weakly, glancing at Percy. He was looking straight at Annabeth, they seemed to be having a conversation with each other without even talking.

Jason was the first to speak up, "How about we watch some TV or something?" he said, shaking Piper out of her silence. She looked at Percy and Annabeth having their staring contest conversation thing and nodded to Jason's idea, "Uh, yea, let's do that guys, come on" she said, and I felt the urge to follow, I saw the others start moving to the Living room, almost in a trance by Pipers words.

I turned to Percy and Annabeth, who hadn't moved an inch. Piper touched my arm gently, "Maybe leave them be, they'll sort things out" She said, before speaking to Annabeth and Percy, suggesting they take their conversation to the bedroom for privacy. Without a word, the two went to the girl's bedroom. They didn't seem angry with one another, more concerned, but they had just frozen, without any audible words. It was very creepy, and made me think that whatever the issue was, they certainly didn't talk about it around other people.

I followed Piper to the living room and she whispered to me, "Don't worry about them, they have a long history and they're just looking after each other. More so Percy this time, I think."

I nodded, "Why did he freeze at what she said, what happened in the past few years?" I whispered back, sitting down next to her, Jason on the other end of the couch. Leo was sitting with the Stoll Brothers and Hazel and Frank had settled into the third couch, lying down together.

"A lot of things happened, it's not my place to say what they went through, but they can handle it."

Her expression told me that it was best not to keep pressing her on the subject, and the way she talked just made me want to agree with her and drop it, so I did.

Jason flipped on the TV and flicked through the channels until he found a movie, Clash of the Titans.

A round of laughter came across the group as they settled into the movie, conveniently based on Greek Mythology.

More specifically, on the Demigod Perseus.

"This is very ironic" I said, chuckling.

Travis and Connor smirked at each other, "We've seen this movie before" Connor said.

"Yea," Travis continued, "Perseus has to kill Medusa near the end and goes into her lair with like four other dudes backing him up." Connor piped up again, the two brothers trading off in storytelling.

"Yea, they all die except for Perseus, and he finally cuts her head off" Travis smirked before adding in, "Percy did it way better, Annabeth and Grover both stayed alive. Plus, he was twelve, this Perseus is in his twenties!"

I almost spit out my water, "Percy killed Medusa?"

Katie smiled at me with a bit of pity. "Yeah, on his first quest" she said, before adding in, "By the way, you should try to avoid spitting out your water every time someone says something Percy has done, otherwise, you're going to be drenched by the time you hear every story."

I nodded, my face considerably paler. "I'll keep that in mind." I said.

"Speaking of the lovely mean scary couple, I wonder how they're doing" Leo said, smirking.

**Percy**

We'd moved to the bedrooms at Piper's suggestion, which was good, since it let us actually talk, and have some privacy. I felt bad with having Eric left with so many questions about how I was acting, but I had to resolve other things first.

"Annabeth…" I said softly, she had her fists clenched, facing away from me. I stepped up and wrapped her in a hug from behind.

"Annabeth, it's okay" I said, she let out a shallow breath. "I know, it's just, every time we get close to this topic I freak out and my brain just fries. I hate it…" she trailed off, and in a small voice let something else slip, "It scares me Percy"

I hugged her tighter, kissing her cheek, and I could see she was holding back tears. It was very unlike the Annabeth everyone knew, that I knew. I didn't blame her for being like this though… Tartarus had been, very effective at unravelling the both of us and turning us into shadows of our former selves. I still questioned myself and everything about me sometimes. Annabeth got it worse though, she'd had to watch me tear myself apart in my head.

I remembered how scared she had looked when I had controlled poison. I'd been so angry, I doubted that I'd really been in full control of myself when it happened.

Ever since that moment, Annabeth had looked at me slightly differently, the love was still there between us, and we both knew we didn't want to lose each other, but I could see it in her eyes, a constant glimmer of fear when she saw me, because she was scared I'd get angry at her one day and lose control like I had in Tartarus trying to get us out.

I knew that it would never happen, Annabeth just didn't make me angry. The only things that put me to that level of anger were the things that tried to hurt her, or get in the way of us being together.

Trying to convince her of that, well, she knew it was true, I'd said it many times. Some fears just sort of stuck with you, I guess, and this one was one of those fears for her.

I snapped out of my thoughts, realizing I was still with Annabeth, and hadn't said a word. "It's okay to be scared" I said, resting my chin on her shoulder. Her reply was immediate.

"I don't want to be scared" she said shakily, "I want to be able to talk about it and get past it, and not have it controlling me like this."

I turned Annabeth around and made her sit on the nearest bed, and sat down beside her. She turned and rested her head against my shoulder, wrapping her arms around me, I wrapped an arm around her and held one of her hands with the other.

"We can talk about it, take it slowly, and get past it together" I said slowly. Truthfully, talking about Tartarus scared me just as much, but I was aware the only way we'd get past it scaring us like this would be to talk about it together and face the fears. It would be hard, but I had to be the calm one about it, because Annabeth was a lot more freaked out by it than I was.

"Okay," she said quietly, "Let's talk"

I nodded, "We can start with something simple, the voices in the River of Lamentation." She nodded, taking a breath. "We both know that they only said the things they did because it's the purpose of the river, we managed to escape the river when we were in it because we're together, and we're here now, together." I said, she sighed, seeming to put the thoughts of the voices to rest, "And if we had stopped and given up there, we wouldn't be together" she said.

I smiled and squeezed her hand. "See? One thing out of the way, and we can always reassure each other that it isn't an issue." I told her, she nodded, but still looked worried, "But Percy, there's so many things that get in our heads, how can we…" I put a finger over her lips to quiet her, "We have lots of time to get through everything, our friends will help us out when they can. Besides" I said, "I've got you and you've got me, as long as we're with each other, I'm never going to regret facing anything we went through. If I get to be with you, it's worth it" Annabeth looked me in the eyes, and in that moment I could see the fear she'd carried since Tartarus fade, if just by a little. She smiled, and leaned up, kissing me. I could feel all the thanks and happiness Annabeth had just experienced as she kissed me, before she pulled back a little bit, still smiling widely.

"I love you Percy" she said, "You're also way too sweet and comforting, like come on" her addition made me laugh lightly.

"I love you too Annabeth. Now come on, we need to get home, we're taking Eric to camp tomorrow and having a little visit with everyone there" I said, smiling and kissing her again quickly.

We got up, reluctantly pulling away from each other. It was unreal how happy she could make me, and the fact that we took a conversation about being in hell, and turned it into kissing and grinning… how we managed it was beyond me. No matter what, there were no words that could express exactly how I felt for Annabeth Chase.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the bedroom as I thought all of this. The others turned, Piper smiling warmly at us. The others varied from smirks to grins, even Eric, although he looked like he had a lot of questions, he said nothing.

"Hey Eric, mind if we go home now. Best to get to bed soon so we can head to camp early" He nodded and got up, silently grabbing his school bag and walking over beside us.

We said our goodnight's and left, taking Eric home and then heading to my mom's apartment. Thankfully, Eric didn't ask any questions.

Tomorrow, we'd be at camp for the weekend, the best place in the world.

**A/N: They'll be going to Camp next chapter! We'll get some more development for Eric, and maybe some less serious stuff from Percy and Annabeth! Remember to Review, I'm always open to feedback and conversation :P**

**On an unrelated note, I figured I'd give a list of a few songs that I've listened to while writing this story so far:**

**-Fix you by Coldplay**

**-Paradise by Coldplay**

**-Yellow by Coldplay**

**-I will not Bow by Breaking Benjamin**

**-Animal I have Become by Three Days Grace**

**-Riot by Three Days Grace**

**For this chapter I actually listened mostly to Time of Dying by Three Days Grace, it sort of became a bit of inspiration for the Percy POV in the chapter.**

**Animal I have Become is a frequent one as well, since I see it as a theme song sort of thing for Percy after Tartarus.**

**As I mentioned in the first chapter or somewhere near it, I'm open to music suggestions, as I always listen to music while writing :P**


	7. Lacking Comfort

**A/N: Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a good one! You can consider this a gift from me ;)**

**Eric**

Of all the ways to travel to a Camp where teenagers who were children of the gods training in combat to kill evil monsters, sitting in the back of a Prius with my friend's parents didn't seem like the most likely.

I mean, why couldn't we take a Chariot, or flying horses? Heck, Percy could probably get us a ride with some sort of sea creatures, right?

But there I was, listening to Paul and Sally talking in the front, while I sat next to Percy and Annabeth in the back.

"This road?" Paul asked, pointing to a road going off the one we were on now, just getting on to Long Island.

Sally nodded, "Yeah, just follow it for a while, I'll tell you when to stop and we'll let them out" she said. I noticed a sign for something about strawberries pass us by.

I looked over at Percy, who had his arm resting around Annabeth.

"So, there's a strawberry place near your camp?" I asked. He gave me a funny look, and I added, "Saw a sign."

He shook his head and chuckled, "Nah, the camp IS the strawberry place, it's a cover story for Mortals to believe" he said. I still wasn't entirely sure about it, and if I saw strawberries at the camp, I would probably give him a funny look right back as karma for his at me.

Annabeth was silent, leaning her head against Percy with earphones in, listening to her iPod. I glanced at the screen and saw that she had a Coldplay song playing, but couldn't make out which one.

I nudged Percy and pointed at the iPod questioningly, he shrugged and whispered to me, "Fix You" I looked at the iPod again and then at Annabeth, wondering if there was any reason why she was listening to that.

"Annabeth isn't in the greatest of moods this morning" Percy whispered again. I nodded, "Is this about last night?" I asked quietly.

I realized too late that Paul and Sally had stopped talking.

"What happened last night?" Sally asked, looking back at us with concern, she kept her voice low, and Annabeth must have had her eyes closed, because she didn't notice Percy's mom turn.

Percy sighed, "Just… something came up about our um, adventure," he paused nervously, looking down, "Last summer, and she had a little panic attack."

Sally nodded in understanding, "Is she alright?" she asked, risking a glance at Annabeth.

"Well, I made some progress and calmed her down and stuff, she's just been thinking about it too much since then is all. Once we get to camp and see everyone, I think her spirits will lift." He paused for a second before adding, "I know mine will."

Paul jumped into the conversation as Sally nodded, giving a small smile.

"How are you doing then, Percy?" he asked. I realized why of all the schools to pick from, Percy's demigod friends had chosen Goode to go to, not only did it put them with Percy, but Paul was a teacher there, and he apparently knew about all the Demigod stuff, so if anything happened it was like a get out of jail free card, in the form of an English teacher.

It had already paid off for them too, I remembered back to when Annabeth had went into shock in class, and Percy asked Paul if they could leave, no doubt that look they had shared told Paul that it wasn't just sickness, and Boom, out of class to deal with the problem.

I turned back to Percy, shaking back into focus.

"-just need time to sort things out, is all" he said, and I'd obviously missed a lot of what he said. I hadn't realized how much time had passed in my thoughts.

"Ooh, here we are!" Sally said, pointing for Paul to pull over.

I got out the car rather hurriedly and looked around. To my disappointment, all I could see was the end of the road, and a hill, we were surrounded by trees. I was pretty sure there was no sign of a Demigod camp here. I didn't see any buildings, for one…

Percy laughed at me when he saw my expression, "Follow me young one, you have much to learn about this world."

We said goodbye to Paul and Sally and they drove off, Annabeth started up the hill, taking out her earphones, Percy followed close behind her and I caught up with him. "They aren't coming too?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at the retreating Prius.

Percy nodded, "They're mortal, they can't get into Camp" he said. I nodded, the Camp must have protection of some sort to keep regular people out.

As we reached the top of the hill. I sucked in a breath. "Whoa" was all I could say as I took in the beauty of the valley below and all its buildings.

Annabeth must have seen the look of pure awe on my face, because she spoke up for the first time since last night, in a quiet voice. "It really is beautiful, isn't it?" she said. I turned to her, surprised to hear her speak, and to answer her question. "It is" I said, my voice feeling small, trying to overcome the feeling of amazement from seeing Camp for the first time.

"Alright Eric, let's go. There's someone who wants to meet you." Percy said, patting me on the back and pushing me forwards to get me going.

I managed to move my feet in a clumsy shuffle down the hill, still a bit overwhelmed. The feeling was starting to simmer though, and I could feel my self-control and strength coming back.

I heard a horse approaching and turned to see, but didn't get a sight I was expecting.

In front of me was a Centaur, a living, breathing, centaur.

"O-ohkay, Centaurs… real" I said slowly, my breathing shallow. I had a feeling I'd be better off getting used to these surprises, otherwise I would probably have a heart attack soon.

Percy whispered to me, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it eventually, it takes a while."

I must have been shaking pretty badly, because the Centaur looked down at me with concern.

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking down at me. I managed to get some words out, "Just a little overwhelmed, is all."

"Ah" the Centaur said, studying me. He turned to Percy, "Did he react like this to the attack?" He asked, and I realized that I hadn't, I'd been way too focussed on beating the monsters to even let my mind go into shock.

Percy's reply mirrored my thoughts, "No, he seemed a little more occupied with winning the fight. He probably would have had this reaction after if he hadn't been so tired and beat up from it" he said.

The Centaur nodded again, "Well, I'm glad you found him and brought him." He looked at me again, "Welcome to Camp, Eric, I am Chiron, the Activities Director here" he said.

I nodded slowly, "You're, THE Chiron?" I asked. "Yes, that is correct" he said, smiling slightly, he glanced at Percy for a second, as if remembering something, before adding, "And if you think anything like your friend Percy, I'd like to clarify that no, I should not be dead."

Percy's face went red and he looked down, "Guilty" he said, staring at his shoes.

"Well, I believe you're in good hands here with Mr. Jackson and Ms. Chase, so I'll leave them to show you around. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them, myself, or any of the other campers from your school" he said, nodding to Percy and Annabeth before trotting off.

I turned to them. "So uh, care to show me the camp?" I said, smiling a little bit.

Percy chuckled, "As I said buddy, follow me."

-LINEBREAK-

After showing me around Camp, We finished by seeing the Cabins. Percy explained to me that each one was for a different God's children to stay in. I wondered which one was mine, but Percy and Annabeth didn't really have any guesses.

Annabeth went off, saying she had some errands to run. Percy didn't look too convinced, but he let her go, reluctantly. When he turned to me, I saw his eyes were full of worry, but he quickly smiled and tried to play it off.

"So, anything you want to do?" He asked, trying to sound cheery.

There was a lot of stuff I wanted to try. Practicing sword fighting, to get better. Checking out some of the stuff in the Camp Store. Meeting up with the other Demigods I knew and meeting some other campers. Checking out the Volleyball and Basketball games going on…

But, I wanted to find out what was wrong with Percy and Annabeth more. I knew I wasn't a very close friend to Percy, like some of the others in our group, and probably at camp, but I was worried about him ever since I saw him again the first day of school. He acted different, looked sad a lot. I'd gotten a lot more worried since last night, when I realized that whatever it was bothering them was related to the Demigod world. I just assumed that any demigod problems were at least ten times worse than the average teenage mortal's drama.

I definitely wasn't close to Annabeth, but she'd helped bandage me when I got hurt, helped to answer my questions, she even helped me with homework during the week, despite only meeting me on the Monday. I felt worried for her too, because I felt like, if I was in her position, she'd worry for me.

"I uh," I stuttered, trying to think of the best way to approach this. Multiple friends of Percy, and Percy himself, had warned that he wouldn't want to talk about it, but it was bothering me too much to ignore it.

"It's been on my mind for a while now, and I don't want to ask, but-"

Percy cut me off, finishing my question, "But, you want to know what's up with Annabeth and I."

"Erm, yea" I replied, hoping he wouldn't get mad at me. Looking at him though, he didn't look mad, he just looked resigned to fate, like he knew this would come up eventually. Knowing Percy though, he probably did.

"It's not something I like to talk about, but I've known you've been wondering for a while, especially after last night." He said, and I wondered if I was about to get a lecture about what not to ask him in the future.

Instead, he just sighed. "I trust you though, and I know that even if it messes with my head, you'll be someone who can help with it. It's sorta messed up though. You sure you want to know?" he asked.

"As long as I don't have to sit through your entire life story right now Percy, Leo said that it's probably long enough for like, ten books"

He managed a faint smile. "I'll save a few Lunch periods to tell you of my adventures. In the meantime, there's only one Story about me that explains what happened to us, and it's easy to sum up"

I nodded in acknowledgement, and he took a breath before saying it. I wasn't aware of just how short the story would be, but I'd forgotten that Percy was ADHD and dyslexic, if anyone was born to like a short story, it was him.

"So, there was a big war like, two years ago" he began slowly, "A lot of our campers died, and it ended on the day I turned sixteen, because of a prophecy about me and another guy" he closed his eyes for a moment at the mention of the other guy, and I wondered what happened to that dude. Probably wasn't good…

_Poor other dude_. My brain thought absently.

"Anyways, after that was when Annabeth and I started dating, and for a while things went good, until I just disappeared off the map." I looked at him, "Where did you go?" I asked, completely confused.

"It turned out, Hera wiped my memories and sent me to the Roman Demigod Camp, and did the same with Jason, sending him here. The Romans and Greeks never knew about each other, but we had to work together for a prophecy, so she decided to switch the leaders of the camps."

I decided to let him continue without me saying anything, it'd probably be easier to just listen.

"We both managed to get our memories back, well, I got all of mine back of a Quest, and he got most of his back after he did his Quest. Then we met up at the Roman camp, and uh, well, things didn't go so great. We went through a bunch of stuff, and Annabeth and I were back together. She would never admit it, but she was pretty shaken up from the time I'd been gone. I wanted to make things better and wished I could have just taken her somewhere quiet and let us relax… but we didn't get that"

He paused, checking if I wanted to speak, but I waved him on. His face was starting to get pale, as if he was getting close to the part that really got them. "A bunch of stuff happened, and uh, well…" he paused, looking at me straight in the eyes, "You know what Tartarus is?" he asked me, and I nodded my head, "Yea, like, basically hell…"

I couldn't help but fear the answer of what happened to them now that he'd brought that up, as if it were involved. As far as I knew, which wasn't much in Greek Mythology, but it was something, No one survived Tartarus, it was a prison for monsters. Monsters of the worst kind.

"Well, she got dragged into a pit that lead there, and I caught her hand, and we ended up hanging off the ledge…" my eyes widened, I did not like where this was going. "I couldn't pull us up, and she told me to let go, and escape, but I couldn't leave her. Not after being taken from her, it was too much. So-" it was my turn to finish his sentence. "You fell into Tartarus with her just to be with her?" I said, my mind was absolutely blown away. He just nodded, looking down to hide his face. "And you survived? Both of you? Holy…" I trailed off, noticing the tears in his eyes. I realized that Annabeth was somewhere in the camp, and Percy was worried about her, and talking about this wasn't helping him any.

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have made you bring it up" I said, putting my hands on his shoulders to try and comfort him, it was awkward to be trying to comfort a teenage guy your age, but Percy needed comfort, and he deserved it.

He shrugged, "It's okay" he said, in a faint voice. "I knew I'd have to deal with it eventually."

I threw aside my thoughts of helping him being awkward and pulled Percy into a hug, patting his back. He accepted without a word, which struck me as odd. Percy didn't seem like the kind to want help. Then again, there was a lot more to Percy than he let on.

"You'll be alright Percy" I said, pulling away. "Now come on, let's go find Annabeth so you guys can talk."

Percy managed a faint smile, "I know where she'll be, I can get there." He started walking away, "And Eric" he said, stopping and looking back at me, he looked like he was a bit happier than five seconds ago, which was more than I expected myself to do for him.

"Thanks" he mumbled quickly, as if he wasn't sure he could speak. He walked off and disappeared behind some Cabins, hopefully going to where Annabeth was.

I walked towards the Strawberry fields and sat in the grass near one of the wooden fences. Taking in the scene of the Camp once more.

After sitting there in silence for a while, a voice spoke up. "Hey there."

I jumped a little bit in surprise and turned around, sitting on the fence was a fairly tall girl with blue eyes that resembled water, and curly long black hair. She had an average build, and didn't really look like she was particularly strong, but then, neither did the other female demigods like Annabeth and Piper. She could probably throttle him pretty bad if she wanted.

"Hey there" I said, repeating her words.

She hopped off the fence and walked over to me, as she got closer I noticed her blue eyes had a tint of purple in them.

"So you're the kid that Percy brought, right?" she asked. I nodded, "You know Percy?"

She smirked, "Not personally, but everyone here knows who he is."

"Oh." I hadn't expected that, Percy must be a big shot around here. It didn't seem like his style, he wasn't cocky at all.

"A lot of people around here are jealous of you, by the way." She said, I looked around, wondering who would be jealous of someone like me. "No one really gets to be good friends with that group that you've met, they're all powerful and important Demigods, but they tend to stick to themselves."

I nodded, they were pretty reserved about meeting new people, "Yea, they're popular here?"

She snorted, "They're very popular, because of what they've done. Less so the Stolls and Katie, they're cool, but the others are up higher, and Percy and Annabeth are just, well, they're as close to God status as you can be around here, if you ask me."

My jaw hung open, "God status?" I asked, very curious.

"Well yea, they're almost as important as the Gods are. It happens when you save the world twice, especially with Percy, since he's the most powerful Demigod in existence." I was pretty much in shock. Percy hadn't even let on that he was a strong demigod, let alone the strongest.

"What about the others? Are they powerful too?" I asked, thinking about the others. Jason had said he was a Jupiter kid, and that was the king of the gods. Had to count for something, right?

"I'd say power wise, Jason is the best of them, followed by Leo and Frank, but they're all pretty close together. Annabeth is the only person at either camp who has ever beaten Percy in a sparring match though, and she's a genius, even more so than her siblings. I think she's up there above the others."

"So she's the second most powerful Demigod?" I asked, amazed that I'd seemingly managed to become friends with all of the most powerful demigods by accident.

"No, I'd give that to another guy, Son of Hades. He's not around much, but he's pretty powerful. Nowhere near Percy, but he's more powerful than anyone else."

"Huh, so I basically befriended all the most powerful people here by coincidence?" I asked, smirking.

"Don't get cocky with it, you got lucky. Knowing them won't make you powerful" she scolded, noticing my smirk. I guess I must've looked smug or something, even though I wasn't thinking that.

She looked me up and down, "No idea who your parent might be, by the way. You don't have any of the striking features of any of the major gods, so you'll probably be a minor God's kid" she said.

"Is that bad?" I asked, wondering what the difference was between major and minor gods.

"Nah, the major gods are just the Olympians, Demeter, Ares, Athena, Zeus… the big names." She explained, "Minor gods are just not on the Olympian Council. Not counting Hestia, she's not on the Council, but she's an Olympian, she just gave her spot to my dad."

I nodded and started thinking, who did Hestia give her spot to? "So uh, who's your dad?" I asked.

She grinned, "Dionysus", I laughed, "The wine dude?" I asked, taking a friendly jab at her.

She just sighed, but smiled all the same, "I see how you became friends with Percy, apparently he calls him the same thing."

She extended her hand and I shook it as she introduced herself, "Andrea Moore, Daughter of the wine dude", I laughed again, "Eric Williams, son of some Goddess."

She nodded, "Alright Eric, let's go see if you're any good."

**A/N: So, the Wine Dude has a Daughter, and we're going to see two different perspectives happening at the same time in different places next Chapter :P**


	8. Swords and Songs

**A/N: Going away from Eric's POV for a little bit, as it was pointed out to me that the Story has followed him heavily so far. So we'll be getting some new POV's from others in the next few chapters! Hope I play them well :P**

**Leo**

I watched as Campers sparred in the arena below me. Myself, not big on the sparring thing, mostly since it's hard to spar with a giant flaming hammer.

Call me overly dramatic, but the hammer worked, and it definitely wasn't too flashy.

It was just flashy enough!

I noticed some newcomers to the arena and recognized one as Eric. I smirked, because the other person with him was a girl, and obviously a Camper. They grabbed swords and armour and got ready to duel, talking. I decided I'd do Eric a 'favour', and went down to the arena quickly, while he was distracted talking to his new friend. I got the others who were sparring to stop their matches, telling them that those two would be a fun fight to watch, because Eric was a newbie. As soon as everyone hit the stands. I made a bet and put my money on the girl.

The betting idea spread like wildfire and soon, anyone who had a drachma in the stands had money on someone. I walked up to the two casually to let them know that they were a big deal now.

"Hey there guys!" I said cheerily, loud enough for everyone in the arena to hear me. Eric smiled nervously, "Oh, hey Leo" he said.

The girl looked at me for a second before responding, "Uh, hi" she said.

"So I figured since Eric here is new to the whole fighting thing, it'd only be right to give him a proper atmosphere for his first sparring match. You two will have the whole arena to yourselves. All thanks to Captain Leo!"

A few chuckled arose from the crowd, Eric just glared at me, and since he was holding a sword at the moment, I took it as my cue to leave to a safe distance.

"Just remember," I said, winking at the girl, "I've got four drachmas on you winning, so give the kid some bruises."

Unsurprisingly, she glared at me too after that. I just chuckled and hopped over the wall into the stands.

"Go for it kids! Make Papa Leo proud!" I shouted, waving my arms around to get the crowd to cheer.

The girl rolled her eyes at me before advancing. She took a swing at Eric to test his reflexes and he blocked. They made a few more cautionary moves before the girl started to press, but Eric's instincts seemed to kick in, and he kept up with her. He did alright for someone with almost no experience or training, but the girl had the edge, she knew what she was doing.

Eric slashed at her feet, but the girl (Who I'd learned from someone in the stands was called Andrea) jumped back and swung at his chest. She caught him in the chest and knocked him down, on to his back. She quickly struck down at him, but Eric managed to roll out of the way and kick her foot, putting her off balance long enough for him to get to his feet unsteadily.

Everyone in the crowd knew that Eric was tiring, he wasn't practiced enough to beat Andrea. She regained her balance and stared him down for a few seconds. She quickly swung forwards, and I thought I saw a white glow around Eric's body for a second, but it quickly vanished.

However, instead of getting hit with the sword like the crowd expected. Eric ducked down and put his arm up, catching Andrea's arm and stopping her swing. With a sudden surge of energy, he stood back up and knocked her sword out of her hand, pointing his at her throat.

The crowd cheers wildly, but I can see from the look on Andrea's face that this isn't done. She smirks and kicks her foot upwards, catching Eric in the stomach.

I wince, thinking of how close she was to kicking him in the groin. That would have been harsh.

He bends over in pain and she flips him over with his arm, taking his sword and putting it against his own throat. I see her say something and don't need to hear it to know, "_Better luck next time buddy" _was pretty standard for these fights. Andrea gets up and walks away, winking at Eric as he watches her leave, lying on the ground in pain.

I quickly collect my winnings from the other campers and go to check on him.

"Hey man! You alright!" I say, leaning over him and grinning.

"Do. I. Look. Alright?" He spits out, glaring at me.

I chuckle, "It's your first fight, this was to be expected, but look on the bright side, she's totally into you" I say.

Eric looks up at me in confusion, "She just tried to kill me, you did see that part, right?" he says, trying to breathe steadily. "Exactly! That's a sure sign that a Demigod girl likes you man. Annabeth tries to kill Percy every day!" he manages to laugh a little before coughing. "If this is how they flirt here, I think I want to go back to School"

I help him up, "Don't worry, it gets better." He looks at me, "Oh yea, how do you know?" I shrug in response, "I'm friends with Percy and Annabeth, Jason and Piper AND Frank and Hazel. Also now Travis and Katie. I think I can tell" I note, chuckling as he follows me out of the arena.

"Don't have any of your own experience with it?" He asks, I stop and look back, seeing his smirk. He's trying to poke fun at me for not being a part of a couple. I chuckle, "I have experience with a different kind of girl than Demigods." I keep walking, indicating that I don't feel like talking about it.

Luckily, he takes the hint and drops it, but asks something else. "Where are we going?"

I grin, "I hope you're hungry Eric, cause it's dinner time" I announce to him, just as the conch horn blows.

We make our way towards the dining pavilion together, ready for a good meal…

**Annabeth**

Somewhere between sad, worried, scared and depressed.

That was where I was. I'd gotten away from Percy and Eric and everyone else as quickly as possible when we got to camp, and went to the only place where I could calm down. The beach.

It wasn't always my favourite place at camp, but ever since I'd gotten close to Percy, well, it reminded me of him, and that made me feel safe. Calm.

No one came near me, everyone at camp knew not to try and talk to me when I was at the beach. Normally you'd feel weird if people avoided you, but I was just grateful. I needed time to think and clear my head.

I was somewhat angry with myself, for letting this all get to me so bad, but I couldn't help it. Anytime I thought about it, I thought about what life would be like if I'd lost Percy in there. If I lost Percy anywhere. I'd never recover. There was just too much that we had together and had gone through together, at this point I'd just be lost and devastated without him.

Hearing footsteps in the sand, I sighed. Only one person would ever approach me here.

He sat down quietly beside me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. I didn't resist, because he could only help me, realistically.

"Percy…" I trailed off, but he rubbed my back and silenced me, "Don't worry, I'm right here" he said.

He knew me well, it couldn't be a coincidence that he'd say those words. We never said that 'it was okay' or 'we'll be fine' anymore. Our lives had been too damaging and harsh for either one of us to ever believe that was true.

What mattered, was that when the next big problem came. We'd be together, and we'd beat it together.

_As long as we're together_ I thought, burying my face in his shoulder.

"What's on your mind?" he asked me in a gentle tone, pulling away slightly and looking down. I looked up at him, unsure of whether I should tell him. "I don't know if I can-"He stopped me, "You can, Annabeth. I'm here to help, remember?" I nodded silently and exhaled.

"I keep thinking of what we went through, and how lost I'd be without you, and I'm scared of losing you Percy" he looked down at me with those green eyes and all I could feel while looking into them was reassurance that he'd always be here. "If you died, I'd never recover" I squeak out.

Percy stays silent for a minute, and I think he's coming up with something to reply with, until he pulls an iPod out from his back pocket. I realize I hadn't even known Percy had an iPod, so it must have been fairly new. "What-" he puts a finger to his lips to signal quiet and hands me the earphones. I watch him scroll through a playlist and press on a song.

The music starts playing in my ears, and I'm slightly surprised at first. I recognize the song, but thinking of the title almost makes me sob.

I'd been expecting a slower, gentler song. I realize though, that Percy isn't like that. He doesn't want to show me that he wants to always be there for me. Percy is too impulsive and stubborn for that.

He wants me to know he's going to be there for me, no matter what he has to fight through to do so.

I smile at the thought, as the lyrics start.

_On the ground I lay_

_Motionless in pain_

_I can see my life flashing before my eyes_

_Did I fall asleep?_

_Is this all a dream_

_Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare_

I wonder how true that might be to him. Demigod dreams could be pretty bad. I remembered that Percy once told me about the Fates showing up to him and showing him his life after he saved Olympus, and how many times we'd been close to death. It's like he had chosen this song exactly for this moment, to represent his feelings.

_I will not die (I will not die)_

_I will survive_

My smile got wider as the chorus began.

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_I feel alive, when you're beside me_

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_In my time of dying_

I looked up at Percy and saw him smiling a little bit while looking at me. He could probably tell exactly what part of the song I was at.

_On this bed I lay_

_Losing everything_

_I can see my life passing me by_

_Was it all too much_

_Or just not enough_

_Wake me up, I'm living a nightmare_

I leaned into Percy's chest, wrapping my arms around him. I wanted him to know how relieved and happy he was making me feel right now, just by making me listen to a song.

The ways he managed to help me were incredible, and so weird and Percy-like. That made them Perfect.

_I will not die (I will not die)_

_I will survive_

I felt him leaning his face into my hair while he held me, gently rubbing my back.

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_I feel alive, when you're beside me_

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_In my time of dying_

At this point, I pulled back, and looked into his eyes. He looked right back at me, and smiled his goofy troublemaking smile, I couldn't help but smile wider and forget some of the things that had been making me anxious. I leaned up and kissed him quickly as the song continued.

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_I feel alive, when you're beside me_

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_In my time of dying_

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_I will not die, when you're beside me_

_I will not die, I'll wait here for you_

_In my time of dying_

The song came to a close and I just stayed there in silence for a minute or two, enjoying the fact that I had Percy with me, and letting him make me feel happy again.

He kissed my forehead as I shifted against his chest. "Where did the song idea come from?" I asked quietly, not because my voice couldn't go louder anymore, but because I didn't want to break the peacefulness we had right now.

"I've listened to it a lot when I think about things like what you were thinking, so I knew what I wanted to do right away when you brought up the subject." I smiled, only Percy would think of that for me.

'I uh, actually have a whole playlist with songs I relate to you and me" he says quickly. I glance up at him in surprise. "You do?" I ask.

He smiles shyly, "Well, I could never sleep after we got back from Greece. One night I remembered something Rachel once said about how she listened to music when she couldn't get to sleep." I nodded, I remembered hearing that from Rachel too. I'd never tried using it myself though.

"So I just made a playlist with songs that made me think about you and all the good things we have and what you mean to me… and whenever I can't get to sleep I just put it on and listen until I fall asleep."

I sit there in silence. "I didn't figure it would work so well, but every song reminded me of you and everything I love about you, when I have you on my mind, I guess the nightmares stay away and I don't have to be scared of falling asleep."

I hugged him tighter. "You're scared to fall asleep?" I ask quietly.

I feel him smile against my forehead, "Not when I'm with you." I smile back.

"So uh, can I see this playlist?" I ask, reaching for the iPod. Percy snatches it away and stuffs it in his pocket and I glare at him. "What? I don't want you to know all the songs on it, I might need them for something in the future" he says. I smile, letting it go for the moment, even though I'm just going to take his iPod later and see the songs. "Don't even think about stealing it later" he says, kissing my forehead.

A giggle escapes my lips, "Seaweed Brain" I say, trying to cover up the fact that he guessed my plan.

He lies down, bringing me with him, and we listen to the waves hit the beach.

I realize something, "Where's Eric?" I ask. Last I had checked, Percy was supposed to be giving Eric a tour of the camp and keep him out of trouble.

Percy shrugged, "He told me to go find you" I raised an eyebrow, "Why did he… you told him, didn't you" It wasn't an accusation, Percy was allowed to tell people, I just didn't know Eric very well and now he knew about something that we didn't share with anyone, only our close friends in the camp knew, the rest thought we were just shaken up from fighting Gaea or something.

Percy smiled sheepishly, "We can trust him." He said, and I simply nodded. No matter what I thought of Eric, I trusted Percy. If he said Eric was alright and trustworthy, then he was.

We lay there in silence for a while, I rested my head on Percy's chest and watched the waves as Percy played with my hair, occasionally kissing my forehead. I heard the conch horn sound for dinner, but neither of us was eager to move. I looked up at Percy to find him already looking at me.

"I know we don't really say it anymore, because of everything that's happened, but we're going to be alright Annabeth, no matter what happens." He says, and I understand what he means. It's not that we won't get hurt and have trouble in the future, which was why we didn't say we'd be okay. He meant that in the end, we'd be alright, because we could get through the pain together.

I smiled at him, my first genuine smile in a while, and responded. "As long as we're together, Seaweed Brain"

He kissed me and wrapped his arms around me comfortingly. "Together forever, Wise Girl."

I rolled my eyes at the cheesy line, but didn't say anything. It was still a perfect moment and I didn't want to ruin it.

Percy's stomach had other plans though, as I heard it grumble below me, quite loudly.

I rolled off of him and started laughing, Percy frowned at me, but his face was so red, it just made me laugh harder.

I managed to calm myself down, and got to my feet, pulling Percy up beside me. "Come on Percy, let's go get some food, gods know you could use it"

**A/N: Hope you all liked it! It's a little shorter than usual, but not too short, so I figured it was good. I wanted to leave Dinner for the next chapter. Also I don't own the song, Three Days Grace does.**


	9. Feeling Again

**A/N: Continuing with some POV's other than Eric this chapter. Not only because of request but because it's useful for getting more perspective in the story.**

**Piper**

Sighing internally, I looked over at Jason at the Zeus table, all alone. He looked bored out of his mind.

Normally he'd at least have Percy at the Poseidon table next to him to talk to, but Percy wasn't in the Pavilion, nor was Annabeth.

Myself? I was sitting at the Aphrodite table next to Mitchell, trying to ignore most of the gossip my half-siblings were bringing up. I was glad I wasn't like my half siblings in a lot of ways, but it was still annoying to feel left out of everything going on with my cabin because of it.

Luckily, Mitchell and a few others were more in between the majority of the cabin and how I was. Apparently the cabin never did any real combat training before, but after Silena they all wanted to be more useful and strong like her. Mitchell told me that once I came around, that sentiment grew because of how tough I seemed.

My eyes wandered to all my friends, enjoying their time with their cabins. Although Frank seemed to feel out of place with the Ares kids, like me, he still had some things in common with them and could get into the conversations a little. Hazel was alone at the Hades table though, and I felt bad for her along with Jason, they both usually had Percy at the table between them.

Speaking of Percy, I heard a familiar laugh and turned my head to see him. The first thing I noticed was nothing about him, but instead the fact that Annabeth was with him, and her smile… it was a real smile. The first any of us had seen from her in a long time.

Almost everyone in the Pavilion went quiet for a moment. I expected my siblings to let out some squeals, but it didn't happen. I guess even they weren't that bad.

I saw Percy look at every table individually, telling them to go back to their business as he held Annabeth against his side. I managed to catch Annabeth's eye and smiled happily for her. She returned it nervously, still taking glances at everyone in the pavilion.

Percy smirked once everyone had gone back to their meals and gave Annabeth a kiss on the forehead, sending her to the Athena table. She sat down with her siblings quietly beside Malcom, who just rubbed her back gently to welcome her to the table. Her siblings acted as if nothing was amiss, because they were all smart enough to pretend. Annabeth wanted things to be normal, so her table gave her normal, just as Percy gave her normal, acting like he always would, and getting the campers to go about their own business.

I watched him go and sit at the Poseidon table, exchanging some words with Jason as they started to talk quietly.

Mitchell nudged me, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Someone seems obsessed" he said to me in a hushed tone. I glared at him, but he just kept a smirk on his face. "Don't worry, you are an Aphrodite kid you know, no matter how much you deny it. You love seeing couples." He lectured, "Besides, Annabeth Is like, your best friend, of course you're overjoyed to see her happy again."

He must have added that to give me a little break, even though he was right. Watching Percy and Annabeth made me happy, because of how they treated each other.

Especially seeing how Percy made Annabeth happier, no matter what was going on. The guy might be as thick as the muck in the Hudson, but he somehow always knew exactly what to do when it came to Annabeth.

Instead of letting on to my thoughts to Mitchell, I shrugged, "It's just nice to see her smiling for real." I said, passing it off as nothing. His smirk didn't fade, "Yea, that's it." He knew I was lying, but thankfully, he turned back to his meal and didn't press the conversation.

Of course, I could easily see why my mom always called Percy and Annabeth her favourite couple. Everything they did was just more proof they were meant for each other.

As much as I hated it, I noticed those things about relationships. Most of the time it was annoying, but it had some uses. Watching mortal high school couples go around, knowing how fake and superficial most of their relationships were. It could be entertaining.

I heard my siblings whispering, "Oh my god, Percabeth just gets better and better!" one of the girls squealed as quietly as she could manage. I thought I saw Percy's head move at her words, but he continued eating, either not hearing or just not caring anymore.

I rolled my eyes, if it hadn't been annoying enough to always gossip about couples and try and toy with most of them, the Aphrodite kids also had to give them couple names like Percabeth, and from what Mitchell told me (Totally not against his will and at knife point, I might add), Jasper for Jason and I.

I almost smiled thinking of that name, remembering when I told Jason about it and he nearly gagged to death in repulsion at how obsessive and weird they were. It was times like those that made me really happy he was my boyfriend.

Chiron cleared his throat, requesting silence. The campers all turned to face him, quieting down.

"Heroes, as you may have noticed, the group of campers attending Goode High School together have come for a visit to camp over the weekend, bringing with them a new camper, Eric Williams!" Eric smiled awkwardly from the Hermes table, trying to avoid attention, but the Stolls grabbed him by either arm and hoisted him on to the table. The camp cheered, welcoming him. I saw him glare at the Stolls, but they shrugged innocently, high fiving each other.

As Eric got back down to his seat, Chiron continued. "Now, I'd like to remind everyone not to overwhelm Mr. Williams, we don't want him getting trampled underfoot by a mob of campers, now do we?" he said. I knew some people, Chiron included, were still looking over at the Hermes table, and at Eric. Waiting to see if he'd be claimed. "Now," Chiron went on, "Off to the Campfire with you all!"

**Percy**

The campfire burned high and golden tonight, and I'd be a fool to not know why, as I looked down at the blonde hair of the girl who sat between my legs in front of me on the bench. A smile made its way across my face as I buried my face in her curly hair, hugging her tightly. "Geez Percy, wrap your arms a bit tighter, I can still breathe" she said, and I didn't have to see her face to know she had a smirk on it.

I called her bluff anyways.

"Alrighty then" I tightened my hug a little more, leaning down and kissing her cheek, "Is that better Annabeth? Or do you want me to keep tightening my grip?" I whispered to her, resting my chin on her shoulder, she turned to face me, giving me an evil look, "Tighten it any more and I'll have to flip you into the fire." She said, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Needless to say, I loosened my hug a little bit.

I leaned against the back of the bench and relaxed, listening to everyone sing along. Annabeth leaned against me and closed her eyes, a faint but ever present smile on her face. I could have dozed off into a nice nap right there and then if not for the interruption, as I felt a tap on my shoulder and someone whisper into my ear teasingly, "I'm not going to have to watch and make sure you two go to different cabins tonight, right?" I sighed, turning my head, "No Piper, I think I'll be fine" she smirked at me, but I could tell she was happy to see Annabeth in a better mood.

I felt Annabeth turn to rest against my chest more, and heard a faint snore. Piper noticed and took the opportunity to question me, "So, how'd you do it?" she asked. I chuckled softly, not wanting to move and wake Annabeth up, "Wouldn't you like to know" I said, grinning at her.

She just shrugged, "If you don't tell me I can always ask my mom." She said, as if it were no big deal.

"You seem awfully interested in our relationship for a girl who tries to claim she's nothing like her mom" I taunted, and watched her cheeks flush red. "I am nothing like my mom!" she snapped defiantly, but it came out a little bit whiney.

"Just accept it Piper, you're a lot more like her than you think" I told her, snickering. I got a punch in the shoulder for that. "Ow! Watch it, Annabeth is sleeping!"

Piper smirked back, "Yea, and if she wakes up, who is she going to trust, you saying it was me, or me saying it was you with my charmspeak?" she asked.

I glared at her, noting that the devil was a five foot six vegetarian.

"You'd be surprised" I retorted, knowing that I didn't really have much to beat Piper's charmspeak.

She grinned at me knowingly, and I sighed, pulling my iPod out of my pocket and tossing it to her. "Playlists" I said simply.

Piper patted my shoulder, "This would have gone by much quicker if you just gave it to me when I asked what you did" she said.

There was silence for a little bit, and I glanced back to see a very recognizable expression on Piper's face as she scrolled through the playlist. I saw that expression a lot from Annabeth when I said nice things to her, or more recently when I played a song from the playlist for her today. It was the 'awwwwwww' look that every girl had built into their genes.

"Percy, I'd have never guessed you were such a charmer" she said, handing me back the iPod. "Not really" I said, shrugging. "Oh come on, you made a playlist of songs to play to her? That's Grade A cheesy romantic."

I looked down slightly, "I didn't make the playlist for her to listen to, I made it to put in songs for me to listen to." I said. "Oh." She said, looking at me quizzically, but with a hint of sympathy and understanding of the general meaning of it.

I explained to her what the playlist was actually for, because it was good to get it out, and I knew Piper was the person most trustworthy with relationship stuff. She had all the love for relationship stuff her siblings had, but without an ounce of the gossipy attitude they had.

When I was done, she just put a hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry Percy, it'll get better." She said. Before I could reply, she added "Also… this just makes you like a hundred times sweeter than if you made the playlist for Annabeth to listen to. I can see why she's so upbeat right now, if you told her what you just told me." She got up after that and went over to sit with Jason and Leo.

I looked at my other close friends, Hazel and Frank were sitting together, holding hands and listening to everyone sing since they didn't know the words to the songs. Travis had an arm around Katie, who was singing along to the songs while Travis and Connor made jokes to each other beside her. Piper had just cuddled up next to Jason quietly while Leo droned on about something he was going to build.

Eric was near the back of the crowd with one of the girls from the Dionysus cabin. They were talking and laughing like they'd been friends for years. Eric hadn't been claimed yet, but he looked a lot like I had felt when I was twelve, at my first campfire. At home.

Just as I thought about his claiming, a light went up above his head, where a torch with a golden wreath around it floated above his head. I wasn't familiar with the symbol, but Chiron noticed along with most of the campers and clarified.

"Well then, it seems you've been claimed, Eric, son of Nike. The Goddess of Victory!"

Eric hadn't noticed the symbol above his head, and it disappeared as he looked up to see it. "Nike?" he asked in a bewildered tone, "Please tell me I didn't have a swooshy checkmark above my head like my shoes" he said, earning some laughter from the crowd. The Dionysus girl beside him swatted his head, "You idiot, why would a Goddess use the same symbol as an athletics company?" Eric shrugged, his face red. "What was it then?" he asked, sitting down quickly.

Jason's voice spoke up, "It was a golden wreath and a torch, Eric" he said, Leo decided to chime in as well, "Next time I fight a monster can I like, rub you for luck or something so I can win?" he asked, and the campers laughed. Eric couldn't help but laugh with them, dissolving the awkwardness for him, as everyone went back to singing and relaxing.

Throughout all of this, Annabeth hadn't moved at all. How she slept through all this, I did not know, but I suspected she hadn't been sleeping well lately. I kissed her forehead, wishing for her to get a good night sleep tonight.

It seemed she was off to a good start, at least.

-LINEBREAK-

"Alright campers, off to your cabins!" Chiron's voice rang out in the warm night air of the camp. I watched as the campers dispersed, heading to their cabins. I waited behind them, wondering where to take Annabeth, finally, I decided to look at Chiron, asking him a silent question with my eyes.

He simply winked at me, with a knowing smile on his face, and headed to the big house.

I shifted Annabeth into my arms and got up. She stirred a little bit as I carried her towards my cabin. "mmm… Percy?" she mumbled, seemingly awake.

I sighed, not wanting to have woken her, but answered. "Yea Annabeth?" I replied, waiting for her question.

"Can I hear at least one of the other songs on your playlist?" she asked quietly. Her eyes opened slowly to look up at me, using her pleading eyes thing that even got Gods, such as Hermes, to do what she wanted.

I rolled my eyes and lifted her up so I could kiss her forehead, "Sure."

She smiled and closed her eyes, leaning her head against my shoulder. I know I said I wasn't going to show her the playlist or anything, but you try to say no to your girlfriend when she's tired and sounds like an adorable little kid asking for candy giving you wide pleading grey eyes.

It's easier just to give in, at that point. Which was exactly why Annabeth did it.

I pushed the door to my cabin open and walked in, setting Annabeth down on my bed gently before closing the door behind me.

I laid down beside Annabeth as she rolled over to face me, smiling and snuggling against me.

A smile graced my features as I slowly pulled out my iPod and picked a song, putting one earphone in my own ear and the other in Annabeth's. I pressed play and closed my eyes, setting down the iPod and wrapping my arms around her protectively.

I didn't need to bother with a blanket, it was already warm in the cabin and with Annabeth's warm body against me I was fine, within seconds I was drifting off. Not even hearing the beginning of the song, I heard one line and smiled as I drifted to sleep, with no worries or fears about nightmares in sight, not as long as I could feel Annabeth in my arms.

The last thing I felt was Annabeth kiss my forehead as she listened to the song, while the music played in my ears.

…_But with you, I feel again…_

**A/N: Next chapter will be some Time at Camp, and maybe some development before they head back to School xD.**


	10. On Another Level

**A/N: Multiple guest reviews asked what Song the Line at the end of Chapter 9 was from, so uh, the song was Feel Again by One Republic.**

**Jason**

Most guys would love to get woken up by their girlfriend in the morning.

Me? Well, I think I'm starting to miss Coach Hedge's 6AM wakeup calls with his megaphone just in the slightest.

I was lying face down on my bed when I heard the cabin door open.

"Jason"

I groaned in response, refusing to move.

"Jason, get up" It was Piper, I realized, my brain starting to comprehend better, now that it was more awake.

I pulled my blanket over my head to muff out the noise.

I managed to voice my refusal to get up, "I'm sleeping."

"I don't care, it's almost breakfast time, get up!" Piper ordered, more agitated this time.

When I didn't reply, I felt her reach under the blanket, and before I could react she grabbed my arm and twisted it around, pushing it around and dragging me out of bed, causing some major pain to shoot up my arm and shoulder.

"OW OW OW" I cried, landing on the cold floor of my cabin.

Piper let go of my arm and looked down at me with a sweet and innocent smile, "Oh good, you're up."

I groaned in pain and rolled to my side. "Yea, obviously by choice."

She just grinned and kneeled down, giving me a quick kiss. "I'm sure it'll be worth it"

I sighed and pulled myself to my feet. "It better be" I grumbled, grabbing some clothes to wear for the day.

As we left the Zeus (Or Jupiter) Cabin, Piper and I headed to the pavilion for Breakfast. I noticed most of our friends at their tables, but frowned at the sight of the empty Poseidon table.

"Great, Percy's not here." I said, concerned about Percy's absence both because he was missing and because I had no one to talk to without him at his table.

Piper coughed, trying to hide a laugh, and took a long pointed look back at the Poseidon Cabin, and then at the Athena table. "I think he's in safe hands" she said. I looked at the Athena table after her and saw Annabeth missing. Despite my annoyance at the fact I'd have no one to talk to, I smirked.

"I still don't have anyone to talk to Piper, he should feel bad about it" I joked, but Piper just shrugged and headed to her table, "I think how you'll feel when he's missing is the last thing on Percy's mind right now."

I sat at my table and asked for waffles, digging in. I heard someone clearing their throat, not really thinking into it, until I realized it was coming from right beside me. I glanced up and saw Leo standing at my side, grinning.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked, pointing at the Zeus table and sitting down anyways. I looked at him, "I know you're bad with rules Leo, but this table thing is pretty easy to understand."

He shrugged, playing with some scraps of metal on the table. "Calm down Jason, Chrion isn't even here right now, besides, we're like huge heroes and stuff now. We can get away with some table switching every once in a while." Leo grinned at me, and I shook my head, "Still, rules are rules. We're not above them."

Leo snorted, almost choking on his chocolate milk. Where the carton he was drinking from was ten seconds ago when I looked at him, I have no idea.

"Tell that to Percy and Annabeth, because apparently Chiron was just going a bit loco for a minute and let them sleep together." He said the last part slowly, wiggling his eyebrows. I shoved him, "Come on Leo, I'm pretty sure they don't think like you."

A few campers were looking over at us by now, but none really seemed agitated. I wondered briefly if anyone had ever broken this rule before, or if Leo was the first offender.

Leo noticed my face while I was thinking and seemed to read my mind, "Don't worry, I'm not the first one to do this. Annabeth sat at Percy's table once a few years ago, apparently. They also were alone in the Athena cabin later that day and were found hugging."

I stared at him, curious as to how he knew that, as far as I knew he wasn't here a few years ago.

"How'd you find that out?" I asked, giving him a sideways glance.

Leo shrugged, "It's amazing what you can learn listening to the Aphrodite campers while setting up a prank in their cabin."

"What pra-" I stopped, "Wait, You're the one who set off the stinkbombs in there?" I asked, glaring at him.

"What's it to you Jason?" he asked, chuckling.

"Piper smelled like bad gas and stale pizza for a week and a half!" Of course this was no deterrent to Leo, who just burst out laughing in reply.

I got the feeling this was going to be a long day.

-LINEBREAK-

We managed to meet up with some of the others between activities, and went out to sit by the lake and talk.

I had an arm around Piper casually as we chatted in our circle; Piper, Hazel, Frank, Travis, Connor and I.

Piper nudged my shoulder and pointed out Leo making his way towards us, Eric in tow. I grinned and waved at them in greeting as they sat down, and went back to the conversation.

"Hey Travis, what are you doing here anyways?" Piper asked, smirking mischievously. I caught on to her plan and grinned, "Yea man, what's up?" I added in.

Travis looked at us in confusion, "What do you mean, where else would I be?"

Connor had picked up on the game as well and chuckled, "I don't know about where you would be, but we all know where you should and want to be"

"What are you guys talking about?"

Leo chimed in, "Maybe we should ask Katie, she's obviously the brains of the relationship."

Travis, not usually one to be the butt of a joke, looked utterly lost.

"What?"

Hazel reached over and smacked him upside the head, "You should be with Katie right now you doofus!" she shouted at him.

"Oh" Travis replied, rubbing his head, his face as red as a tomato. "She's busy right now with her cabin" he said.

"And?" I asked, continuing the fun. He just gave me an _are you serious?_ Look, "And, her Cabin hates my guts, so we're meeting up later"

Piper 'oooh'ed, "Travis has a date, Travis has a date!" she sang, causing Travis to go even more red than before. The whole group broke into laughter, Travis took his chance to get up silently and leave, trying to avoid more teasing.

We all stopped and watched him go, before looking at each other and bursting into another fit of laughter.

"Did you see his face?" Connor asked, huffing and trying to regain his composure.

Leo managed to contain his laughter long enough to reply, "His face looked like a big red balloon!"

Eric was the first to calm down. "So uh, is this how camp always is?" he asked, looking at each of us.

We all glanced at Connor, willing him to answer since he'd been at Camp longer than the rest of us.

"Pretty much, except for during the wars, it was a lot less fun during those." He added.

We all nodded, and I wondered something, thinking back at how Camp Jupiter had been during the Titan War. "How was camp, during the Titan War and stuff?" I asked.

Percy and Annabeth had said some things, but Percy hadn't really been in the camp for most of it, he was always on missions or taking time to get away from it all. Annabeth didn't really want talk about it, and she'd been out on a lot of missions as well.

Connor shrugged, "Really quiet, especially because of all the deaths and betrayals, our happiest moments were when people returned from missions and no one had died." He said.

"That bad?" Frank asked, breaking his silence in the conversation.

Connor just nodded, "The Titan War brought with it the only day in Camp History that the campfire burned Black." He said, we all looked at him curiously, silently asking what had caused it. "It was when we burned Beckendorf's shroud" he said, glancing at Leo, who looked down.

I knew Leo didn't like hearing about Beckendorf's death, despite the fact that he'd never met him, he'd heard all the stories about the guy, and Beckendorf was a hero to the Hephaestus Cabin. Leo had become very caring for his Cabin, despite being a very non-serious person.

"The Titan war was pretty crazy though. I'm pretty sure there's a thousand stories from the campers who were there about their victories in battle. Plus you can find out about Percy's triumphs from just about anyone in camp, though Percy himself, or Annabeth, can give the most accurate versions of them, since they were always together."

I noticed Piper smile involuntarily at the last part and nudged her, flashing her a knowing look. She just glared at me, daring me to say something about it.

"What exactly did he do?" I heard Eric ask. We'd all forgotten that Eric had only gotten here yesterday. He had no idea about anything Percy had done, despite being his friend.

"Well for one thing, when Kronos sent an army through Central Park, he took the Athena Cabin, Nature Spirits of the Park and the Hunters to face it. While the others fought, he battled the Titan Hyperion"

I widened my eyes, I'd heard he had faced Kronos and the story of Luke and all that in some detail, but I hadn't heard he'd faced a second Titan, much less the second best Titan Warrior, next to Atlas.

"He fought Hyperion?" I asked, looking at Connor. I could make out the others out of the corner of my eyes and saw they had similar expressions. At least I wasn't the only one who hadn't heard.

Connor shrugged, "Yep, he ran over top the water and hit him with a wave to extinguish his flames, and then made a small hurricane to keep the flames out, and sent him over to the nature spirits, who trapped Hyperion in a tree"

Eric's mouth hung open, "He beat a Titan?" he asked, awestruck.

Connor nodded, "More than one, really, he also fought Kronos multiple times, and eventually they beat him, but that's a complicated story, you'll hear it later for sure." He scratched his chin, as if thinking. "He also fought Atlas once, but didn't fare so well against him. He ended up just taking the weight of the sky for Artemis so she could fight Atlas and force him back into holding the sky"

Now I was just starting to feel a little bit inferior, despite the fact that I was Jupiter's kid, could fly, and could use lightning and all that. I realized that Percy was way out of my weight division. I was miffed about it, but I couldn't really feel angry or jealous of Percy, he was too nice a guy.

Hazel recovered from her shock, "Any other Titans he's fought?" she asked, almost in a snappy tone.

Connor shrugged, "I heard a rumor he, Thalia and Nico faced Iapetus, but Percy has never said anything about it himself, and the other two are never around"

He decided to add in, "He's faced multiple Gods as well"

He looked at all of our faces, and chuckled, "Yea, you guys thought you knew Percy so well, huh?" he asked jokingly. "The problem with hearing about Percy from Percy or Annabeth is that Percy is way too modest and neither of them are particularly fond of reliving most of those memories. Next time you want to know about Percy's work, come to me and I'll see what I know"

With that, Connor jumped to his feet and strolled away, winking at us as he went.

Leaving the rest of us in shock, more or less.

**Annabeth**

I woke up feeling a calm peacefulness that I hadn't felt since the day after the Titan War, when Percy and I started dating. It was just the feeling that no matter what I'd been through, maybe, just maybe, there was hope for some quiet relaxation now, with no big enemies to worry about.

I remembered a conversation between Percy and I at the end of that summer, talking about how maybe the new prophesy wouldn't come true for decades and we'd be able to grow up in peace. We'd been very, very disturbingly wrong about when it came true, but now, with that prophesy behind us now, I hoped that the fates would have a little bit of mercy for us.

We'd only saved the world twice and all, was eighty or ninety years of relative safety too much to ask?

I realized something else, I hadn't had any nightmares last night. On the contrary, I'd had good, regular, non-demigod dreams. Mostly about the boy whos chest I was using as a pillow right now.

I shifted my head to look up at his face and smiled. Percy looked so much better when he was sleeping, all the worry left his fact, and he started to look more like he did before all the pain and death we'd seen and faced. When it was just us, here, together. He seemed to become more the happy, laughing carefree Percy and less the Percy who'd been forced into being a leader for the camp in wars.

I also noted that, despite how much older he was than the twelve year old boy I'd nursed back to health, he still drooled in his sleep. I closed my eyes and smiled, knowing that I wouldn't want Percy to be any different than he was, no matter what his flaws and faults were.

I listened to his heartbeat, comforted by the gentle rise and fall of his chest, for a long time, not wanting to move, nor seeing any reason to. If being around Percy taught me anything about myself, it was that I didn't really care about breaking rules. If we missed breakfast, I'd be okay.

Finally, I felt his arms tightening their grip around me slightly, "Morning" his tired voice spoke.

I opened my eyes slowly and saw him looking down at me, smiling. "Morning" I replied, returning the smile.

I glanced around the cabin and noticed the iPod sitting on Percy's nightstand. I raised an eyebrow looking at it, and Percy followed my gaze, picking up on my confusion, "I woke up an hour or two ago and noticed you still had it playing, so I put It away" he said.

I nodded, "You know, that was probably the nicest way anyone has ever put me to sleep." I pulled myself up to his face and kissed him, feeling his grin. He rubbed my back reflexively as I pulled away from the kiss and rested my head on his shoulder.

"Well, it certainly beats a blow to the head, that's not a very fun way to be put to sleep" he said, and I slapped his cheek weakly, "I don't need your sarcasm when I've just woken up, Seaweed Brain."

He laughed softly, rolling over so we were side by side and pressing against my back as he nuzzled against my neck, pressing his lips softly against my shoulder. I felt myself shiver, but smiled.

All my worries were forgotten here, lying with Percy's arms around me protectively. After all these years, I'd connected him to a sense of safety, no matter where we were.

Now that we weren't in danger… that feeling was much more prominent.

"Percy?" I said quietly.

"Yea?" Percy replied, leaning in closer, keeping me warm and safe like only he could.

I turned my head to face him, "Do you think we'll actually live long enough to have a life away from fighting?" I asked, looking into his eyes. After everything we'd been through, as much as I wanted to believe we'd have a happy ending, it just didn't seem to be where our luck was taking us. I wanted reassurance.

For all the doubts he'd expressed to me in our moments of distress after fighting Gaea, Percy's expression seemed confident and determined as he answered.

"I see it as the most certain thing in my future" he said, and I couldn't detect any hint of a lie or doubt in his voice.

"How can you be so sure?" I asked. Percy kissed my cheek and smiled warmly, "Because we're Percy and Annabeth. We'll destroy anything that dares try to take away our vacation time."

I laughed at his way of putting it into words, as he always had to make serious things a joke to try and make things more relaxed.

Shifting myself to face Percy completely, I smiled at him and wrapped my arms around his neck. "One day Seaweed Brain, we're going to have that future that kept us alive in Tartarus" I said, managing to say the name of that horrid place without even flinching. I was too relaxed and upbeat right now for that to faze me. Percy just grinned, "I pity the poor soul who has to babysit for us" he says teasingly.

I smirked, "Oh yea, all of your insanity and all of my wit put together," before adding, "Besides, smart kids with water control, deadly combination during bathtime" Percy laughed, leaning in closer to my face, "That's my favourite combination, I can't see anything better than you and I together"

He leaned in the rest of the way, resting his forehead against mine and kissing me. We stayed like that for a while, I let all the girly joy over his statement flow into the kiss, because I didn't see any better ways to express my feelings about it through words.

Reluctantly, I pulled back, glancing at the window of the cabin. "As much as I'm enjoying this time" I began, before Percy cut me off, "Yea yea I know, sunlight, wakey time and all that" he said in an annoyed tone. Though I could see in his eyes that he didn't really care. He probably didn't care if we were in our cabin or outside doing things, as long as we were doing them together. I smiled at the thought and rolled over Percy to get to the edge of the bed. I got up and got ready, while Percy did the same, a little bit more lazily.

Still, we both managed to be ready to go at about the same time, and left the cabin. It was definitely past breakfast. So we just went to look for our friends instead, we could eat at lunch, no matter how much Percy would complain about being a growing boy.

**A/N: Almost at 8,000 views now, and one Review away from 50. I'll take that as good enough, for my first Fanfic, only 10 Chapters in so far though.**


	11. Story Time

**A/N: So, this Chapter is ALL Leo, and is mostly comic relief, as only Leo can do. Of course, it's not all jokes and laughs, but hey, sue me. Leo is complex and I love the guy for it.**

**Leo**

After hearing about some of Percy's adventures from Connor, we'd all split up to look for Percy and ask about the stuff he'd done. One obviously did not simply casually mention that your friend has used multiple Titans and Gods as punching bags and then leave without sparking a lot of curiosity.

Jason and Piper had headed to the Poseidon Cabin to see if he was still asleep with Annabeth. Hazel and Frank had went to the arena, archery range and climbing wall to check if he was training. Eric had headed towards the beach to look for him.

I'd decided to check the Lake. It seemed to be a popular spot for Percy and Annabeth, and there was very little doubt in my mind that they were together right now.

I ran around the lake frantically, checking everywhere. They'd recently added in Benches all around the camp for campers to relax, and the lake had no shortage of them to check.

Just as I had decided they weren't here, and had started to make my way back to where some of the others were, I saw two figures on one of the benches facing me. I recognized them immediately.

Neither of them noticed me as I started running towards them with way too much excitement and energy. Annabeth was reading a book, while Percy stared at his feet, seeming to be zoned out listening to music or something. They were leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder.

"PERCY JACKSON!" I shouted loudly, trying to get his attention. Annabeth glanced up at the sound of my voice, and then nudged Percy when she spotted me.

Of course, being Leo Valdez, as soon as I had their full and undivided attention my excitement made my leg flare up unexpectedly. I looked down at my now on fire leg in surprise and reflexively kicked off the ground with my other foot to jump away, launching myself sideways and landing on the ground with a thud.

I quickly extinguished my foot and scrambled to my feet to finish running over to them.

As I arrived, I noted the amused grin on Percy's face, while Annabeth just gave me a weird glare, tilting her head sideways.

"Uh, hey" I said. Percy took out his earbuds and paused whatever he was listening to, I didn't bother asking, because I'd learned that Percy's taste in music was completely random and all over the place.

"Hey" he said cautiously, not knowing if he should be worried about my presence or not. I got the feeling he was preparing to summon the lake at any second in case I spontaneously combusted again.

I decided to make a conscious effort to not burst into flame. I really didn't want to get a lake chucked at me like a football.

"So um, Connor mentioned a few stories about you and some of the baddies you fought and uh…" I trailed off as Percy chuckled, "Let me guess" he said, "You all want to hear more about the fights I've been in." I nodded, grinning. "We heard a bunch of names, we want to know how you beat them up."

Annabeth smirked, "He didn't do it all alone, you know." I ignored her comment because if one of them would just come tell us, we'd know that. Also, I knew it would annoy her.

"Jason, Frank and I are rather ticked off that you didn't let on to how much of a total badass you are Percy." I say, putting a hand over my heart mockingly, "It hurts, I thought we were your friends"

Percy shrugged, "You didn't ask about it before" he said. I glared at him. How dare he use that excuse, 'you didn't ask!'

"Well, we didn't know before Percy, you need to tell us these things for when we write your biography and sell it as an important historical document." I said this sternly, wagging my finger at him in disapproval.

Percy groaned, "I told you already, I'm not writing an autobiography." I grinned wildly and smacked his shoulder, "Of course not buddy, when I said we, I meant Jason and I. We don't want to share the profits with a third person!"

Before he could argue further, I changed subjects back to the reason I came here, "Now, come with Leo kiddies, you're going to tell some stories to the rest of the seven…and Eric, because he's very confused and eager to learn more about you, since he's realized how much of your life he is missing out on." I grabbed their arms and pulled them out of their seats, ignoring their protests.

"Don't worry, there will be plenty of time to talk once we get the others!"

-LINEBREAK-

After Percy and Annabeth had given up on escaping me, (I can be really, really persistent.) We found the others and went to the Amphitheatre. I noticed Connor and Travis waiting for us, grinning like idiots.

Percy was the first to react, slapping his hand on his forehead and closing his eyes. "Please tell me none of you told Travis or Connor what you were getting me to do" he said. Annabeth frowned, obviously figuring out what her boyfriend had already guessed. I looked at the others, who didn't seem to be budging, but noticed Frank fidgeting.

"Uh, Frank, something you want to tell us?" I asked, making everyone turn to him.

Frank froze, and I swear I could see him trying to decide on whether to spill the beans or make a run for it.

He sighed, "They found me when Hazel was checking the archery range and asked what I was doing, I didn't think anything of it!" he spoke quickly, turning a little bit red from embarrassment. "Sorry" he mumbled, looking down.

Percy just sighed, releasing his frustration with a big breath. "Its fine." He said to Frank, who let out a relieved huff. Percy pushed on and past the Stolls into the Amphitheatre, and once I caught up to him, I realized what the big fuss Percy was making was about.

Travis and Connor had somehow seen fit to spread the word of our little 'story time' plan to the other campers, effectively turning it into an open invitation to two hundred and something demigods who wanted to hear about some of Percy's feats.

"Well Percy, look at it this way, they all already see you as famous, now you're just telling them why you're famous" I said, laughing at his discomfort.

Percy shook his head, "I don't want to be a Celebrity Leo! I'm not that great. Most of the stuff I've done was luck!"

Annabeth appeared in time to punch Percy in the shoulder, "Barely any of it was luck, Percy, stop denying that." She said, grabbing his hand. "And by the way, I already gave the Stolls a little warning to make sure they don't do something like this again, so don't worry about them."

Percy nodded, a grin spreading across his face as he and Annabeth headed into the Amphitheatre.

I looked around until I found the Stolls. Both of them were lying on a bench holding their crotches, writhing in pain.

Maybe it was still a good idea to not piss off Blondie… even at camp.

I took my seat and noticed Chiron enter the Amphitheatre and head over to Percy. He must've heard about this and decided to make a camp activity out of it. That, or he noticed that the entire camp was all in one place at the same time without him asking them to gather and wondered what the Hades was going on.

Eventually, we all got settled down and Percy took his place in the centre area.

"So, this was originally going to be me telling a few stories about my life to a bunch of friends who were curious, but of course, some people-" Percy glared at the Stolls, "-decided to spread the word and turn this into a full camp event." A few cheers went up at that, before dying down to let Percy continue.

Percy began to say what some of the stories he'd tell were before he got into them, his voice was loud, easily audible even to those in the back of the stands.

I noticed how everyone in the Amphitheatre was listening intently to Percy, even the Ares cabin, which apparently hated him. The guy had done nothing to gather their attention, they heard that he was going to be telling stories about his life, and every single one of them had shown up, and Percy had their undivided attention.

Percy might be the most modest demigod in this camp, but at this moment. He held the eyes of every single other demigod here, and as much as he would try to deny it, Percy was the one they see as their leader, and this was the amount of respect they had for him. It was hard not to realize how powerful that was, and that made Percy a very powerful person at camp, and not because of his Demigod powers or his sword.

Jason seemed to notice as well, as his jaw hung open in awe, looking around the seats.

I nudged him, my usual hyper ADHD fidgeting actions had disappeared, brushed away by the feeling of awe. Jason turned to me with an eyebrow raised, "What's wrong with you? Your jaw looked like it was trying to separate from your face."

He subtly pointed around at the campers, whispering back, "Two Hundred and Fifty plus ADHD demigods, and every last one is paying attention to Percy just because he's Percy" he said.

I shrugged, pretending it should be no deal, "You were Praetor at Camp Jupiter, wouldn't they do the same for you?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at him.

Jason let out a sigh, "Not unless we requested a gathering to speak to them" he said, "Percy didn't even want them here and they came at the first mention of him talking about his accomplishments."

I could sense how he felt about it, and felt a bit bad for him. There was no way any of us would be as well-known as Percy was. While we were still known and all, before today, we'd only known a few things about Percy's past, and hadn't spent a big amount of time at camp with him to see how the other campers acted around him and talked about him.

I figured it was probably for the best though, I mean, if I had all that fame and popularity, I'd totally get a big head and use my power for myself. Percy was so modest and oblivious, he either didn't think he deserved the recognition he got or didn't realize how much power and influence he had half the time.

"Just be glad it's Percy who has this power and not some major jerkhead." I said, shrugging.

Jason must've figured that was good enough, and turned his attention back to Percy's story. As did I.

We were taking in how important he was to the campers and all, but we still wanted to hear the stories as much as everyone else did. Otherwise we wouldn't have brought him here.

While Percy went on, my eyes wandered around the stands, Piper was with Jason and I, but Frank and Hazel were near the front, close to Annabeth, who of course was in the front row to be as close to Percy as possible. I knew the Stolls were somewhere in the front too, from when Percy had glared at them, and assumed Katie was with them.

As for our newest addition, I spotted Eric in the stands to my right, with that Dionysus girl who'd beaten him up yesterday. I smirked, as they seemed to be getting close. I had told him after that sparring match that she was into him, and I was standing beside that belief.

I had a few tricks up my sleeve to keep them near one another, which meant I'd have to have a talk with Eric later.

-LINEBREAK-

I sought out Eric, hoping to ask him what was up between him and the wine girl.

Yes, I've taken to calling her the wine girl. Originality has no place here.

Admittedly, the long line of stories Percy had told today were still sifting through my mind, with all the things he'd done, it was surprising to know he was in fact a mortal demigod. From what he'd done, you'd have thought he was a God himself for most of it.

I tried to put those thoughts on the backburner to talk about with Jason and Piper later, or something like that.

I saw Eric sitting at the edge of the lake and went over, sitting down next to him quietly, but making sure he knew I'd shown up. I didn't want to give the guy a heart attack.

"So, enjoying your quality time with Andrea?" I asked, rather suggestively. Eric turned to me and I wiggled my eyebrows for effect.

He shoved me towards the water and I tried not to get overly offended, "Whoa there, let's not shove the fire guy into his greatest weakness huh? Are you trying to murder me?" I asked, false anger in my voice.

Eric stuttered, trying to apologize, so I laughed at him to let him know I was kidding. "Jeez man, calm down, water doesn't hurt me." The glare I got from him made it very worth it.

"Seriously though, care to share?" I asked.

Eric shrugged, "I dunno, she's pretty cool, even if she beat me up and punches me a lot"

I smirked, "Don't worry, that's a good thing." I said.

He raised an eyebrow, "How would you know?"

I grabbed his shoulder and mimicked a wise elder giving advice, "Well you see, I have eyes, and they see Annabeth hit and beat up Percy a lot, Piper hit and beat up Jason a lot, Hazel hit and beat up Frank a little bit, but she's just shy. Obviously. Katie hit and beat up Travis a lot…" I let him take it in for a moment, "Do you see the pattern?" Eric nodded.

"Heck, half the time I just get yelled at and threatened by-" Eric's head turned to face me with new interest and I froze, not really ready to share that certain piece of information yet. "Uh, nevermind."

I tried to stay upbeat and avoid the memories, but it was always on my mind. They'd given me very little choice, and by that I mean no choice, on whether or not I was attending Goode this year, which complicated my schedule very much, since I wasn't allowed to miss an indefinite amount of school to go to the Mediterranean for a certain crabby, insufferable, amazing Goddess.

That meant I was stuck waiting for Winter break. Which felt like it was an eternity away, considering we were only a week into the school year.

I knew one thing though, I'd already made my case to the Gods and make it painfully clear that I was personally going to make sure they released her this time and didn't forget like they did when Percy requested it.

I hadn't forgotten my oath. I was going to go back for Calypso, I just wasn't ready to tell my friends yet. Especially Percy.

"Anyways, what are you going to do when you go back to your house and school?" I asked, looking over at Eric again.

He shrugged, his face taking on a frustrated expression, "No idea, I mean, I just met her, and found out all these things about the gods and being a part of it all. It's like, I want to go back to school and stuff, but I don't want to leave Camp behind." He looked out over the lake, with the moonlight shining down on it, "Or at least, certain parts of Camp." I noticed a ghost of a smile flicker across Eric's face.

"Well, you could always see if Andrea wants to try attending Goode" I suggested, knowing it'd get his attention.

"I wish" he said wistfully, "But she has nowhere to stay, and she can't just apply to the school on her own"

I nodded, but had already thought things through for him. "Yea, but she can ask Chiron and Mr. D for permission to go, they can get her enrolled no problem and get her mom's approval, plus, we have an extra bed in the girls bedroom at the apartment, it was going to be Annabeth's, but she decided that Percy's torso was a better bed and ditched us. So it's up for grabs"

"I don't know if she'd go for it" he said, seeming to be determined to rain on the parade I was throwing him, and I shrugged, "Never know until you ask, you pessimist." I got up quickly, brushing off my jeans, "Besides, Mr. D is her dad, so if she wants to go, she's basically going, because apparently the guy likes his own kids, just hates all the rest of us"

I held out a hand to help Eric up and he took it. "Think about it, you have most of tomorrow to bring it up to her, but after that we go back to the city"

With that, I left him alone and headed to my Cabin, ready to lie on my bed and relax a little bit. Assuming I didn't catch on fire again, because it'd already happened once today and I wouldn't put it past myself to try and scare myself half to death AGAIN with something that can't kill me.

It's like my body hated me sometimes.

**A/N: Next Chapter will be getting back to the City and stuff, because while Camp has been fun, this Story is titled after Goode High, so I figure it should take place mostly at the school and in the city, you know? xD**


	12. Settling In

**A/N: This one is slightly shorter than the others, but first time being in Andrea's POV, which was interesting to write in, especially with her being around Eric and her dad.**

**Andrea**

When I woke up Sunday morning, I didn't really expect to end up asking my Father if I could attend High School with the most famous Demigods at camp.

It just sort of happened that way.

After breakfast, Eric came over to talk to me, as soon as the conversation got to the fact that he was leaving soon, he came out with his idea.

"You could always enroll at Goode and go to school with me" he blurted out quickly.

I turned to look at him, my cheeks faintly pink. He backtracked right away, "I mean, you said that you don't really have much to do around here, and you're one of the only people I've befriended here. It'd give you something more to do and we could keep hanging out"

His face was going red from embarrassment and I couldn't help but smile at that. "I'd have to ask my dad, but even then, I have nowhere to stay" I said, not that I didn't like the idea, I hadn't been to school in years, and it'd be cool to go to a school with a bunch of famous Demigods, and lets not forget, the Stoll brothers in a high school was a recipe for beautiful disaster.

He shrugged, "Leo suggested you take the extra bed in the girls room at the apartment they all have. He said that none of them would mind."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

Eric, of course, just shrugged again. "Course I am. All you have to do is ask your dad."

I figured that was the best assurance I would get, and I did want to go, so I just went with it. Whatever happened later could be dealt with later, when it hit me in the face.

"Sure, worth a shot, I guess" I said, turning to head towards the big house. Might as well do it now instead of waiting, right?

I looked back to say something to Eric to see that he hadn't started following me.

"Eric?" I called, questioningly.

He shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, "Yea uh, I don't think I want to meet your dad, no offence. Everyone says he hates the campers"

I sighed, "He's not that bad" I huffed. Having a Godly parent at camp who pretended to hate every camper was really irritating sometimes. Part of the reason I had so few friends was because they all thought my dad hated them, and he was at camp so they didn't want to get blown to bits by him if they ever got in an argument with me or something.

Eric looked up at me with a worried expression on his face, but he quickly changed it. Ignoring his nerves, he walked up to my side and gave a small smile, "As long as you make sure he doesn't turn me into a wine bottle" I snickered as I took his hand and led him to the big house, ignoring his blush, "No promises, if he does, I'll be sure to drink a toast to you with you."

-LINEBREAK-

I stood calmly on the front porch of the Big House after knocking on the door. Eric stood at the foot of the steps warily. He'd agreed to accompany her to talk to her dad, but that obviously didn't mean he was any less of a big baby.

I heard grumbling and curses coming from inside the house and smirked, recognizing the voice.

The door burst open, Dionysus looking out, "Oh, hello Andrea" he said, biting his tongue to keep back all the profanities he had prepared for the person who woke him from his nap after seeing it was his Daughter.

"Hey Dad, I uh, just wanted to ask you about something." I said quietly. I may know my dad is nice, but he's still an Olympian God, and I didn't talk to him often.

Dionysus's features softened somewhat, "Yes, what is it?" the annoyance left his tone as he spoke, replaced with a rare affectionate voice that was generally reserved for his Demigod Children.

"I was invited to go attend Goode High with the other Demigods there-" my dad interrupted, "Yes yes, Waterhead and his friends" he said, a hint of a smile on his features, I decided not to tease him about it, since that would annoy him and I wanted him to say yes to my proposal. "Uh, yea, so I was wondering if I could, you know, go"

Dionysus merely shrugged, "Of course, dear, just try not to go to any parties, as much fun as it would be to watch you put the mortals to shame at all their alcohol games, you're not yet of age for that"

I smirked, "I'll try my best dad, but if they put a keg stand in front of me, I don't think I can be held responsible for my actions." Dionysus shrugged, since he really didn't care if I did drink, it's not like alcohol affected me very much. "I suppose that'd be my fault" he said with a small grin.

Dionysus gave me a rare smile and put a hand on my shoulder, "Just be safe, Andrea" he said, before quickly adding, "By the way, I heard you beat up that poor new Camper, Edward something or other-" Eric finally found the nerve to speak up, "Eric Williams, sir" Dionysus waved him off in irritation, "Whatever Ewan. Anyways, good job, daughter"

And with that, Dionysus was back into the big house.

Eric let out a long whistle, "I think he likes me" he said after a long pause. I turned back to see a crooked grin on his face. I just smiled and left the porch, "Sure he does" I said, patting his cheek. I let Eric go to tell the others I'd be joining them, and went to my Cabin so I could pack and say bye to my siblings.

**Katie**

I was a little bit excited as I hopped into the van we were getting a ride back to the city in. Apparently Andrea was joining us after Eric invited her at Leo's suggestion, and I was hoping to get to know her better. I mean, I liked plants, and she probably liked some plants, at the least. Travis and Connor made a scene as they basically dove into the van, fighting to get in first. Travis managed to shove Connor back out, pushing his face away, and sitting down beside me in the back seat with a grin.

I sighed, "Why am I dating you?" I asked coyly, acutely aware of Connor being here with us.

He quickly leaned in and kissed me and I forgot what my question was.

A new voice broke us apart. "Oh gods not again!" Leo exclaimed as he climbed in and took his seat, pretending to cover his eyes so he couldn't see us. "There are way too many couples around here" his complaints were ignored as Travis smirked at him and then leaned in to kiss me. It was just a peck, before he pulled away, teasing me. Daring me to make a move.

I bit my lip and looked away, deciding to hold back until we had some privacy.

Eric and Andrea showed up together, chatting like old friends. They reminded me a little bit of Percy and Annabeth, but they didn't seem to have any awkward tension between them that had let everyone clue in to Percy and Annabeth liking each other. That would probably be a big relief for Leo. He had enough complaints of couples around him as it was, the last thing he would want was another one.

The others showed up in a group, all getting into the van.

The drive was fairly silent, mostly just introducing everyone to Andrea. She seemed very nice and easygoing, and even glared at Travis and Connor when they made a joke, just like I did.

Yea, I'm definitely going to like having her around.

We dropped off Eric at his house first, which left Andrea with the rest of us. She was feeling shy, without a doubt. She barely knew any of us, and all of us, more so the others than myself or the Stolls, were pretty famous in the Demigod world.

After that we dropped off Percy and Annabeth at his mom's apartment. It only took a few minutes to get to our apartment from there.

I led the way to our door and opened it, letting everyone come in. Since Eric didn't live with us, I took it upon myself to help Andrea adjust, mostly because I wanted to befriend her, but also, well, to save her from Leo, Travis or Connor.

Leading her to the girls room, I showed Andrea her new bed. She dropped her bags on it and sighed. "A lot to adjust to, huh?" I asked, smiling.

She nodded, "A little bit, I mean, I only really know Eric, and he doesn't even live here. So I basically have no one." She said, before I could get offended she added, "No offence, it's just..." I nodded back in understanding. "Don't worry, Eric usually visits to hang out with us when Percy and Annabeth do, because he knows Percy, so he'll be here a lot." I told her, shrugging. "Besides," I added in, "We're all pretty nice here, obviously you have to watch Leo, Connor and Travis." Andrea chuckled slightly at that, beginning to unpack. "But Frank is nice, along with all the girls." I paused for a moment, "Even Annabeth" I added in dryly. Andrea smiled a little bit uncertainly, "What about Percy?"

I raised an eyebrow, "Well, everyone knows what Percy is like"

She gave me a look, "It's not that I don't believe they're all nice, it's just the stories about them, it's hard not to feel intimidated and think that they're all going to be tough and judge you because they've done all these things. While the rest of us haven't"

I managed to laugh at her worry, getting a sideways glance from her. "I get what you mean, but trust me, none of them have let themselves get a big head over what they've done."

She opened her mouth to counter me but I cut her off, "Not even Percy, with his mile long official title." Andrea remained silent, and I knew I'd gotten her question right. "It's probably hard to believe, but Percy is extremely modest"

I was getting bored with the topic, so decided to try and get Andrea settled in and prepared for school.

"Anyways, uh, if you have anything you need help with or questions about school or the apartment, you can ask any of us here" I told her, sitting on my own bed nearby. "At school, if you have any demigod related problems, just find one of us, or Mr. Blofis, he teaches English, but he's Percy's step dad, so he's around to help" she nodded, smiling a little bit.

"That must be helpful" she remarked. "Yep" I said, grinning, "It's awesome because we're getting into Greek literature in his class, and there's a bunch of us there. It's free marks, and we can derail his class so easily with all the stuff we know."

Andrea's eyes took on a dark glint, as if she was contemplating uses of a demigod friendly teacher that Travis or Connor would contemplate. "Soo, you and Eric huh?" I said slowly, grinning at her.

That shook her out of her thoughts. "Uhh, yea, we're friends now, I guess" she said quickly. The pink tint in her cheeks didn't go unnoticed by me. "I bet you like being friends" I speculated, trying to get an admission from her. She just glared at me, face getting a little bit more red, "Yes, friends."

I laid down on my bed, smirking, "Are you sure you just want to be his friend, Andrea?" my tone held a hint of mockery.

Andrea, surprisingly, did not blush any more than before. She did seem lost in thought, confused, almost.

"I don't really know, I mean, I just met him and he's nice and all, but I can't really see myself… with him" she explained, slowly.

"Well, you've got plenty of time to figure things out" I said, shrugging. She looked so conflicted, I didn't want to push the subject any more. I turned the discussion to gardening, smiling widely when she showed interest in the conversation.

We ended up watching a movie with everyone else in the apartment before going to bed, getting to know Andrea a little bit better. By the time she got up and went to bed, she seemed to be feeling a little more at ease with everyone.

So far, I was very glad she had decided to join us.

**A/N: Next chapter will start with the same night from another Perspective and probably go into the next day at school. We'll start seeing some random mortal characters soon!**


	13. Movie Night

**A/N: So, I didn't end up getting to School just yet, in this chapter, but hey, it's pretty close.**

**Percy**

Annabeth insisted on doing homework when we got back from camp, saying that she hadn't had a chance to work on it this weekend and that 'she was not going to let me bring her grades down by making her fall behind in her classes'.

I may or may not have interpreted it as a challenge.

Luckily, she decided to do her homework in my room, so we had a little bit of privacy. I was fully prepared to get her away from her work and closer to me. Seriously, we finally had some positive progress with our 'recovery' while we were at camp this weekend, the fact that we were the only two here just meant all the more reason to celebrate. And yet, here was Annabeth, ignoring me completely and working on some calculus worksheet on my bed. I was fully prepared to kiss and argue her away from that homework, and maybe a bit further…

Well, maybe not. She'd likely stab me if I even thought about trying to take her shirt off, much less anything further.

It's not my fault I think like that, just because I'm a demigod doesn't mean I'm not a teenage guy. I have all the same thoughts as the other ones. I'm just better at suppressing them.

Honestly, the fact that we were demigods just made things seem more urgent. It was pretty well known that Annabeth and I were a bit past the expected life span of two demigods who've fought in two wars and gone on more quests than the rest of camp combined.

Annabeth didn't think like me, quite obviously. She was also really scary… maybe it'd be best just to stick to kissing her. Yeah.

I moved closer to her on the bed, sitting cross legged behind her and leaning forwards, wrapping my arms around her. She tried to ignore me, of course, continuing with her work as if I didn't exist.

"Come on Wise Girl, take a break" I murmured, pressing my lips to the back of her neck gently. I placed a few soft kisses along her skin, just enough to make her shiver from the contact, and broke out in a grin.

"Percy, I will punch you if you don't let go" she said, trying to sound harsh.

It didn't come out that way, even she knew she didn't really want to do her work, considering Option B.

I pulled her closer to me, advancing to kiss her cheek. "You know you want to" I said, smirking. She let out a huff, trying to focus on her worksheet, but I pulled her away from it and into my lap.

"Percy!" she turned enough to punch my chest and glare at me, so I pulled her into a tight hug, trapping her arms.

I whispered in her ear, "If you don't cooperate, I'm going to have to exploit your weakness"

Her eyes widened, "That's not fair!" she exclaimed, groaning in frustration. I just smiled back, enjoying the moment, "Who said I was fair?"

She frowned, her eyebrows scrunching up as she went into thinking mode.

I turned her around to face my, running my hands along her sides lightly. She stifled laughter, "No! Percy don't!" she warned.

I snickered and leaned in, "If you weren't so stubborn it wouldn't end up like this" I teased, resting against her forehead.

She drew in a deep breath, we were nose to nose.

I saw her eyes flicker down to my lips before meeting mine again and grinned. "Giving up?" I asked.

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain"

We both moved in at the same time, our lips meeting. I felt her grinning as she put her arms around my neck, and realized that Annabeth was just trying to make things hard for me, as usual.

If my mouth hadn't been so preoccupied I would have grumbled something about stupid promises.

I shifted, lying Annabeth down on the bed as I leaned over her, running my hands up and down her sides, ridding up her shirt. She let out a soft sigh, running her hands through my hair and pulling me closer. I felt one of her hands leave my head as she put it against my chest, right where my heart was. Her leg wrapped around my waist slowly and I smiled against her lips. Taking the chance to catch my breath.

"Looks like someone's getting excited" I murmured, grinning at her.

She slapped the side of my head, "You totally just lost any chance you had at pissing off my mom tonight" she said. I raised my eyebrows in confusion. What did her mom have to do with this?

Then it dawned on me and my eyes widened. "What?"

Annabeth laughed at my expression and pulled me down, pressing her lips against mine again. Suddenly, pissing off Athena in that way didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered except the beautiful girl beneath me, who managed to always brighten my day. I slowly moved until we were at the edge of the bed, not even breaking apart, and then wrapped my arms tight around Annabeth, standing up and lifting her into the air.

She broke away from our kiss and let out a laugh. "Put me down!" she shouted, smiling brightly and leaning down to kiss me again. I grinned and pushed her up so she was hanging over my shoulder. "No. We're going to go watch a movie." I said, stepping towards my door.

"I have homework!" her protest was weak. If Annabeth really wanted out of this, she'd have tried to strangle me by now.

I smirked, "Annabeth Chase, do not make me get my mom to help me. I'm sure she'd love to watch a movie with you." I turned my head to watch her face as her resolve crumbled. As stubborn as Annabeth was, she loved my mother, and I knew she hadn't spent a lot of time with her this week, so I felt the guilt trip was appropriate.

"Fine" she said, finally.

I laughed, heading towards the living room, "As if you had a choice."

**Paul**

I sighed against the silence in the kitchen. While I was glad that we were having some peace and quiet in the apartment for once – usually with a demigod in the family, the place was far from serene, to say the least – It was just… well, boring.

Sally was typing away at her laptop in the living room, working. I had taken to busying myself with some tests I had to mark, but marking was a very tedious job. It was without any doubt, the worst part of being a teacher.

So naturally when I heard some noise coming from the hall, I took the chance to go see what it was, because anything was better than grading school work, right?

Wrong.

I realized the noises were coming from Percy's room, and it sounded like Annabeth had screamed. My curiosity got the better of me as I opened the door slightly, hoping that they weren't attacked by some monster.

Instead, I got a view of my step son straddling his girlfriend as they made out on his bed. It almost made me want a monster to show up. I thought about going in and scolding them, because honestly, it seemed pretty heated in there, but instead, I closed the door silently.

As much as I cared for Percy, I was still just his step dad, besides, he was responsible and had been through more than I could even try to imagine. If anyone was in a position to decide whether or not to go give Percy a lecture, it was Sally. So, I headed out to the living room to fill her in.

As I quickly explained to her the situation, she let a small smile play across her lips. I stopped, perplexed, "What?"

Sally just shrugged, "Oh, nothing" she said, smiling, "You're just acting like an overprotective parent, is all"

I stared at her, "This is overprotective?" I asked.

"Yes, it is. Not that it's bad to be like that, but honestly Paul, those two have been in life or death situations before. I think we can trust them in handling their emotions properly" I nodded slowly, because it did make sense.

"Besides," her smile turned into a smirk, "At least if they do anything, you and I both know that as Demigods, they practically live by the expression 'Better safe than sorry'"

I got the feeling Sally wasn't at all worried about the chances of that occurring, and her point seemed to be proven as Percy marched into the living room, carrying his girlfriend over his shoulder, with a huge grin on his face. "Anyone up for a movie night?"

**Percy**

Annabeth grumbled from behind me as she gripped my shirt. I heard her huff before she shifted slightly, "Hi Sally, Paul" she said kindly, as if hanging over my shoulder was absolutely normal.

My mom and Paul grinned at each other knowingly, as if they had some sort of inside joke about movies.

"Sure honey" my mom said, closing her laptop. "What do you want to watch?"

I set Annabeth down on the couch and feigned relief at not having to carry her anymore. She shot me a playful glare, indicating that I should sit down and shut up before I say something I regret.

"I think I'll let Annabeth choose, she dragged me away from my homework for this, you know" I smirked at her as I sank into the spot on the couch beside her.

My parents broke into laughter and shot disbelieving stares at me, "I'm sure that's what happened Percy" Paul said wryly. Annabeth grinned at me and went to pick a movie, she went through the cases before stopping, "I'd pick this one because it's about Greek Mythology, but I think Percy would have a hissy fit at some point" she teased, holding the case for us to see.

I stuck my tongue out at her, reading the title of the movie, _Wrath of the Titans. _

"Don't get me started with the inaccuracies, much less the fact that Poseidon dies when he's awesome" I complained, she ignored me, going through the rest of the movies before picking Grown Ups and putting the disc in.

She got back on the couch beside me and curled against my side. Paul turned out the lights as the movie started, but I could plainly see my mom grinning at me and Annabeth. I rolled my eyes and put my arm around her waist, tugging her closer to me as I turned my attention to the movie.

I started to get tired about half way through the movie, and with that, my mind drifted away from focusing on the TV. It was a little unusual that we'd had so few problems with monsters since the Giant War, it was as if they all decided we weren't worth the trouble anymore, and only a few of them were bold enough to come after us. I wasn't saying it was bad, it just had me a little paranoid sometimes.

Another welcome change was that there were, for once, no gods showing up and asking us to do things, no prophecies and quests to deal with. It was a chance to finally spend some time in the Mortal world, go to school, and feel normal for once.

Of course, if the gods started to show up again, I was definitely done being their pawn. Lose something? Get someone else to find it. Get kidnapped? Find another rescuer. Have some big new threat looming? Get another hero to be in your prophecy.

There was no way I was dealing with all of their baggage anymore, sure, if there's a war coming, I'm going to help, it's in my best interests to help win the war and get some more peace, but I'd play a supporting role in their drama from now on.

If the fates don't like it, they can come deal with me personally.

I'd been dealing with all these Demigod problems for six years. Now, I just wanted to have a quiet life, more than anything. One with Annabeth by my side.

Conveniently, guess who was right by my side right now? Annabeth.

She was still awake, somewhat, watching the movie. My fingers were idly drawing patterns along her side as I held her, while she'd leaned into me more, placing a hand on my chest. I leaned over and kissed her forehead before murmuring something about sleep in her ear, and then rested my head on top of hers.

My mom and Paul were lying on the loveseat together, probably more awake than Annabeth and I were. Annabeth kissed my cheek and rested her head on my shoulder, probably getting close to sleep herself. I let my eyes droop closed and fell asleep with my arms around her.

-LINEBREAK-

I shifted slightly as I awoke, feeling something warm against my chest. I let my mind wake up before opening my eyes slightly, squinting. I took in my surroundings, realizing I fell asleep in the living room, on the couch.

As for the warm something against my chest, Annabeth's backside was against me with my arm wrapped around her waist and holding her close. I let my other hand drift to her hair, brushing it away from her face gently. My parents must have turned off the TV and went to their room last night, because we were alone in the living room.

Annabeth's legs moved slightly, brushing against mine, and I knew she was awake.

I smiled and laid a light kiss on her neck, below her ear. "Morning" I whispered, smirking as she rolled around to face me, bringing her body closer to mine in the process.

"Morning" she said, pressing her hands against my sides and giving me a peck on the lips.

We stayed like that for what seemed like ages. It was one of the best things for us to do, just lying around together quietly. None of our fears could manage to come to mind at times like these, only good memories.

Our peaceful moment was interrupted by my mother walking into the living room and smiling brightly at us, "Wake up and come get breakfast, in case you've forgotten, you do have school today."

I groaned, already beginning to hate Mondays like every other teenager did.

Not that I really hated it, because in the end, this was better than waking up and having to go fight monsters or being in the woods on a quest.

Besides, I got to wake up next to the best person in the world. Can't complain much.

**A/N: Hope it's alright, even though it's shorter than most of the other chapters!**


	14. Monday Morning Fights

**A/N: Had a bit of writers block with this Chapter, so I'm open for suggestions of things to happen at school with either the Demigods or with random mortals!**

**Jason**

Leo elbowed me lightly in the arm as we sat in our homeroom, stopping me from falling asleep. I opened my eyes and looked at him questioningly. He nodded towards the door of the classroom, grinning evilly.

"Looks like someone woke up on the right side of someone else last night" he joked, and I turned to see Percy talking to Paul, smiling and laughing. I realized what Leo meant and snickered. Percy wasn't a morning person, but he was very much an Annabeth person.

He made his way to the seat in front of me and sat down, looking at us weirdly. "What's wrong with you guys?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Leo piped up, "Oh, we're just not used to you being so upbeat and, how shall I put it… on top of things, this early in the morning." He broke into a fit of giggles halfway through, barely managing to finish his line.

"Should we expect Annabeth to float into the room on a cloud or something?" I added, smirking at him and snickering.

Percy frowned at us before shoving Leo out of his chair to the floor, who just started laughing even harder while he grimaced from the fall. He punched me in the shoulder, but I was a lot bigger than Leo, Percy knew I wasn't going to get shoved out of my seat.

"Grow up" he muttered, turning to face the front. Leo couldn't hold back his laughs as he got back into his chair, trying to quiet down.

"Calm down dude, we're just teasing you. Besides, you and I both know that when Superman goes for it we're not going to let him off the hook either"

I glared at Leo, "Watch it, Valdez"

Percy recovered his lopsided smile. "He's right though. But seriously, nothing happened, so shut up."

I muttered something about stupid friends and crossed my arms, slumping down in my desk.

Piper whispered in my ear from behind me, making me jump. "What's got you so down, Sparky?"

I turned to face her, catching my breath. "Don't scare me like that, Pipes!" She smirked and leaned in, granting me a quick kiss on the lips. "It's my job to scare you." She reminded me, smirking.

"Don't ruin my dreams" I muttered, letting out a sigh.

It turned out that Annabeth did not, in fact, enter class floating on a cloud. She did look rather happy though, which had to mean something happened. Which in turn was a sure sign that Leo was never going to let it go. He was still bringing up the time we'd caught them sleeping next to each other on the Argo II.

"Guys I think I'm going crazy… Annabeth looks, almost, happy!" Leo exclaimed, earning glares from both Annabeth and Percy. "What?" he asked them, "You cannot tell me that you haven't always been in a bad mood around me and been mean to me!" he accused her, smirking.

She rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder, getting some faint laughter out of the other students in the class, who had begun to watch the exchange with amused expressions.

"What's your point, Leo?" she asked, holding her fist in front of her so he could see it.

"Uhh, err, nothing." He quickly turned his face to the books he had on his desk, pretending to read them. "Good" Annabeth muttered, opening her book and proceeding to read it, ignoring the rest of us.

"Oooof course" Percy muttered, glancing at her longingly. I grinned as I saw a few of the girls in the class staring at him after he spoke, like they wanted to talk to him but were afraid. I smirked and kicked him to get his attention and then nodded in their direction, he turned to face them and all the girls looked away, blushing.

"You've got admirers, dude" I said, chuckling. He groans and places his head on the desk, obviously uncomfortable with the idea. Mr. Blofis looked up, "Something wrong, Percy?" his tone was somewhat amused.

Percy sighed and lifted his head, shaking it. "Nothing sir, Mr. Grace is just bullying me, is all"

I scoffed, "Did not, how can you try and blame me?"

Percy just smirked diabolically at me before pointing a finger gun, "J'accuse" he sang in a bad French accent.

"Mr. Blofis, are you going to let him do this? It's unfair!"

Paul scratched his chin, a small smile on his face from watching Percy and I argue, "We've got three more minutes of Homeroom and nothing better to watch Mr. Grace, by all means, carry on"

Leo tried spark a bigger argument, "I wonder who would win in a fight between you two, with just your fists of fury", the classroom broke into chaos, with the mortals debating it based on their appearances, their friends throwing in stuff they knew about the two. Leo was trying to explain in a dumbed down way, why I was nicknamed superman, while Frank and Hazel talked up Percy's game. Piper just sat in her seat with her feet on her desk, trying to ignore the noise. Annabeth continued reading as if nothing was happening around her.

"What do you think, Grace?" Percy asked, grinning at me.

"I dunno Jackson, you're pretty strong."

"Come on, you look like a Roman Legionnaire with those abs, I know you're packing"

"Don't joke with me, we all know you can take guys twice your size, you're like a Spartan"

"Nah, Frank could toss me aside like a ragdoll"

"But Frank is totally beast, that's an unfair comparison"

"Let's refrain from calling him 'totally beast', and this is about you and me Superman"

"That's so unfair, I can't use Aquaman against you because he sucks"

"Maybe we'll have to test things out and see who would win"

"I bet we can convince our teacher for PE to let us have a nice fight"

"Well Piper is in the class, we could convince him to do just about anything"

Piper threw a balled up piece of paper at Percy, "Don't bring me into this!"

I looked around and realized the whole class had hushed down to whispers and quiet, listening to Percy and I.

Percy glanced around the room sheepishly. "Uhh." He tried to find a convenient distraction.

I was about to say something to try and get rid of the silence when we heard a loud POP come from down the hall, followed by loud footsteps and shouting. Connor slipped past the doorway, his sneakers skidding on the floor as he came to a stop and ran in, taking a seat in the back so he could hide. Travis followed quickly behind, reaching the door and grabbing the frame, breathing heavily, "Help please!" he cried, looking at us.

My first thought was a monster, but Connor wouldn't have come and sit down if it was a monster, so what was it…

"TRAVIS!" A very angry Katie jumped onto Travis's back, hauling him away from the door. Mr. Blofis started laughing, quickly followed by the rest of the class, as we watched the older Stoll brother stumble around while getting smacked in the face repeatedly by his girlfriend.

"You tried to hit me with a stink bomb!" she shouted in his ear, dropping back to her feet and punching him in the chest. She proceeded to punch him over and over while complaining about his pranks on her and how inconsiderate he was until he put a hand over her mouth and pushed her up against the lockers gently.

Our class watched intently, most of us out of our seats and at the door.

"Uhh Paul, shouldn't you…" Percy trailed off.

"I'd rather not get involved in anything that has to do with either of the Stoll brothers, thanks" he muttered, getting some stifled laughter from the class.

Travis smirked at her angry expression, "Connor did it, not me" he said, getting a muffled "Hey!" in protest from Connor, who was stuck at the back of the group of student at the door of our class.

Travis removed his hand from her face and leaned in to give Katie a quick kiss. "Now try not to kill me, okay?"

She calmed down slightly, and noticed that our whole class was watching. Her face turned strawberry red and Travis turned, seeing us and widening his eyes in surprise. "Whoa, stalker much?" he muttered, scratching his head.

Luckily, the bell rang to end homeroom and the couple left in a hurry to escape our eyes. Our class slowly grabbed all of our things and dispersed into the halls.

**Leo**

I had class with Percy next, so I was with him in the hall, talking. Annabeth had left him to talk with Piper and Jason, so I was all the guy had. It almost made me jealous of him.

"So, what really did happen last night?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

"I told you already, nothing happened. We watched a movie with my parents and fell asleep on the couch."

"Together" I clarified, grinning.

"Yes, together, like pretty much every night so that we don't have as many nightmares" he muttered, looking at me with a dark expression.

"Oh, right." I replied, feeling a little guilty, "Sorry about teasing you and stuff."

He waved it off, "It's fine, you forgot and wanted to get in a joke, no big deal" he smiled at me to prove it was nothing and gave me a pat on the shoulder.

Before I could voice my doubts, a girl came up to us, I turned and grinned, ready to introduce myself, but she ignored me, instead speaking to Percy.

Why do all the girls go for the fishhead, I wondered, idly fiddling my fingers.

"um, hi Percy" the girl said, smiling shyly at him. Percy of course, grinned cheerfully at her, "Hi" he replied kindly, probably oblivious to the fact that this girl was totally about to flirt with him or something.

"I was wondering if you uh, wanted to go out sometime…"

I wasn't good with girls, but even I had seen that was coming.

Percy's smile faltered a little, "Oh, uh, I sorta have a girlfriend" he said quietly, trying not to be rude.

The girl frowned, but nodded and took a step back, "Sorry, I'll just-" she turned on her heel and headed back to her friends, her face burning.

"Man, I wish girls asked me out constantly" I muttered, watching her go.

Percy groaned, "It's really not that great, besides, I think you'd turn them down if they asked you."

My eyes narrowed at Percy, "Why would you think that?"

"Don't think I don't know where Khione sent you" he said, turning to face me.

My eyebrows rose in surprise, "How do you – " he cut me off, "Piper said after they found you, you seemed distant, like you were always thinking about someone, and well, she's an Aphrodite kid, she figured out you must've met a girl. I put it together with the whole being launched away by a Goddess and figured out where you went."

"Is that all you know?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

He smiled a little bit, "I'm pretty sure I know why you want to have Festus rebuilt in time for Winter Break, and what you asked for from the gods as your gift after you asked for time to decide."

"Just… don't tell the others okay? Piper will freak out and constantly ask questions and everyone will have stuff they want to ask, I don't want to deal with that."

Percy shrugged, "No worries. So, you're going to go free her, huh?" he asked. I wasn't sure why he wanted to know about it, since it wasn't really his problem, but I responded.

"Uhh, yea, why do you want to know?"

He glanced around to see if anyone – specifically any demigods – were around. "Just want to be able to prepare a little bit for when she gets back. She and I aren't really on the best of terms, for reasons both widely known and totally unknown."

"What," I scoffed, "Like you forgetting to make sure she was released?" I asked bitterly, glaring at him. He winced, but nodded. "There's that, and sometime after she became bitter with me, she may or may not have done something I wasn't happy with"

I raised an eyebrow, "Like what?"

"Like cursing Annabeth" he stated flatly. "W-what?" The word came out shakily, I knew Calypso hadn't really been thrilled to have been left on her island, but cursing someone?

"How do you know?"

He looked at me nervously, as if he was afraid saying anything would bring back bad memories, which honestly, it probably would.

"Well uh, when we were in, you know, hell, we fought some demons that when you killed one, you felt the pain of a curse someone had put on you, like feeling the pain a certain monster felt when you killed them, for example." He began, "Annabeth killed one, and it left her unable to see or hear me, feeling completely alone and lost. The demons said that it was from Calypso, so that Annabeth could feel how she felt after I had to leave."

"Look Leo, I'm not saying not to go get her, because she deserves to be rescued. I just wanted to know about it so that I don't get caught off guard with her showing up. She's not exactly in my good graces, and I can't imagine I'm in hers. I don't really, blame her for doing it though. She had reasons to be bitter."

The bell rang, interrupting our conversation, but Percy left one last thing hanging in the air, "Besides, you're stubborn and determined, you'll get to her, and you deserve someone like her."

With that, he grinned and turned to go to class, I stood there quietly for a moment thinking over his words before following. I didn't really want to be late, now did I.

**A/N: So uh, I start School on Monday, so updates might become a bit sporadic, but I'll try to keep it as frequent as possible!**


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